


Marry Potter and the second time at Hogwarts

by CatChan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adoption, Agender Character, Agender Harry Potter, Agender character passing as a trans for good reasons, Angst, Blood, Blood Ritual, Crack, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Other, Sibling Love, Time Travel, Uncle-Niece Relationship, off-screen cruelty against animals, plus they do it seriously, self mutilation, severus loved Lily as a sister
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-04-23 10:30:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 43
Words: 26,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19149211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatChan/pseuds/CatChan
Summary: Harry woke up with a gasp."Up! Get up! Now! Up!" That was definitely Aunt Petunia's screechHarry sighed. A few years ago such a sigh would have been of despair.Well, in a few years, he would think he would have thought that such a sigh would be of despair.But no, this sigh was of relief.It had worked.Harry patted himself down, feeling his young knobbly knees, and obviously under-weight body. He had to be eleven. The stairs above him were certainly close enough.He had time.





	1. The vanishing glass

**Author's Note:**

> The self-mutilation isn't in a dark way. It happens, but it's for a magic ritual.  
> So, like check the trigger, stay safe, but it isn't permanent harm, and it only happens once.

Harry woke up with a gasp.

"Up! Get up! Now! Up!"

That was definitely Aunt Petunia's screech

Harry sighed.

A few years ago such a sigh would have been of despair.

Well, in a few years, he would think he would have thought that such a sigh would be of despair.

But no, this sigh was of relief.

It had worked.

Harry patted himself down, feeling his young knobbly knees, and obviously under-weight body. He had to be eleven. The stairs above him were certainly close enough.

He had time.

Well, not that much time, he reflected as Aunt Petunia attacked his closet's door again. Now was the time to be a house-elf to his despicable relatives.

As it turned out, he had been brought back on Dudley's birthday.

He dispassionately watched his immature cousin throw a tantrum and stuff his face. Business as usual. For the time, that is, Dudley had gotten better with time.

And then he had been killed.

Harry swallowed painfully. That was alright. He could still prevent all that from happening. He could. He had time.

Harry avoided all the fists and feet headed his way with the ease of an even longer practice than he looked, thanks to his Auror job, and climbed in his uncle's car, headed to the Zoo for the second time in his life, but first time in this one.

Time travel was exhausting in terms of thinking of the past.

This particular time travel was potion induced, though.

Malfoy, of all people had brewed it with the sand of an old, illegal time turner. It was meant to do exactly as it had done.

Harry would have been surprised at his school enemy’s generosity, but his mother and son had been murdered in the civil war. It had even been a revenge killing for the Weasleys'...

Harry shook his head, getting scolded by his uncle and aunt in the process. The Weasleys were fine. At this time, they hadn't been rounded up and summarily executed in front of Harry's Potion-frozen eyes.

And Harry was there now to keep it from ever happening. He was going to stop Voldemort without it getting to the point where hate got stirred between purebloods, halfbloods and muggleborns. He was going to prevent the Wizarding World Wide Civil War from ever happening by swiftly and quietly disposing of old Tommy the asshole, and then work at rooting out the corruption in Wizarding Britain's government, and then be an ambassador for peace and acceptation of the other everywhere on the world.

It would be so much better than to just be the savior of Britain then watching the whole world catch on fire ten years later.

So much better than watching his children be...

Aunt Petunia's screech shook him out of his grief and he scrambled out of the car.

For now, he had a Zoo to visit.

And a Boa to avoid. Harry had later looked up what had happened to him. He'd been caught not a mile out of his cage and put back in, where he died (of heartbreak, Harry was sure) less than a year later.

Harry could still speak Parseltongue, even at the Horcrux death. Hermione... Well, before. Had concluded that the ability had had the time to steep in, partly because Harry had used it a bit as himself.

Harry didn't mind, but it meant he could still enjoy a bit of his zoo visit. And hopefully get out of here with a protector.

(It was, after all, time to plot a better life for himself...)

He eagerly ate his cheap and paltry ice, and unobtrusively followed his relatives around.

When Dudley started complaining about the sleeping Boa, Harry ignored them and started to look around for his perfect snake.

It needed to be small, and plain. But preferably venomous, if not deadly.

Common would be great too, something that wouldn't stir up too much of a hunt if it went missing.

Like a Vipera Berus, or common european adder. Perfect.

Harry headed to the glass tank set to the side, showing a small snake with brown scales and a zig-zagging black line on the top. He tried to look like he was just being unobtrusive to his ever vigilant Aunt, and ducked his head, looking right at the snake.

_"Hello. Wanna get out of here?"_

The snake turned to look at him, and hung his (her, actually, according to the little plaque) head. _"I know very well tthat I can't, why are you mean?"_

 _"I'm a wizard. I'm very young, but I think I could try. Would you protect me for a while in exchange?"_ Harry jerked his chin at Vernon's loud harassing of the Boa. _"My guardians are horrible."_

She stared at the commotion and reared back. _"Tthat they are. I can feel hiss horrible tapping all the way here. Would you ffeed me? And protect me in exxchange? And let me go once you are ssafe?"_

Harry nodded. _"Yes."_

The adder flicked her forked tongue out. _"Then try, young wizard."_

Harry smiled at the adder's dry delivery. Such faith...

But for now he concentrated on his anger to have to be here, his wish for the glass to just pop a conveniently sized hole without making the alarms scream, and how much better that would all make his life if being in a young body meant that he had his old accidental magic again, because he'd never gotten such a good grasp on wandless casting.

Thankfully, the hole appeared right where Harry wanted it, and he darted his arm in. After a moment of rearing protectively, the snake slithered around his wrist. Harry withdrew his arm, and hurriedly hissed for the adder to hide under his baggy shirt.

The adder did so with barely a grumble, and Harry hurried up to follow the Dursleys and their friends.

The rest of the visit was boring and much less eventful than the first version. Still, Harry felt his young heart beat in elation at having a guardian, common as it was. He also felt sorry for the Boa, but he tried to let it go. Maybe he would come back someday and free him, with a portkey to Brazil on hand.

Harry waited with trepidation as the Dursleys bade Dudley's friend farewell. He would threaten his despicable relatives with a snake as soon as the unfortunate witnesses were out of the picture.

"Wipe out this smile, boy!" Vernon bellowed, signaling that it was time.

 _"Come out now, Please."_ Harry hissed, smiling ever wider as the full family flinched from his hiss.

They actually recoiled when the adder uncoiled and hissed, tongue darting out in what Harry knew to be curiosity, but could be taken for a threat by anyone else. Before commenting. _"They sstink._ "

Harry laughed, both at the comment and the cowering. "Now, I got a new friend." He announced. "She says you look delicious."

"Call the police!" Vernon bellowed, presumably to himself.

"And how do you plan to explain that I can commend the snake?" Harry asked mischievously, feeling a true keenness to the twins. "It would be so strange. Almost... Magical. That I hiss and she listens. Maybe you'd better just let me keep her and stop being awful to me? She will bite otherwise."

It was not all strictly true, but the Dursleys didn't know it.

Rather than letting them react, her turned around, asking the snake to watch his back. "I'm taking the smallest bedroom. Expect stuff to be in the corridor. You can always put it in the cupboard under the stairs."

Harry hurried while everyone was frozen, swooped in the cupboard to gather his meager belongings, and darted up the stairs to what was now his bedroom instead of Dudley's second bedroom. Just a bit ahead of time, but who wanted to sweat the details?

First things first, Harry needed to speak with a snake. _"So, what's your name?"_  
He might be just a bit late, but he had other priorities.

_"SSnake."_

_"But that's what you are."_

_"Yess."_

_"Don't you have a name, that's just yours, not anyone else's?"_

_"No, Why?"_

_"Well. You're special to me, so I want to call you something special."_

_"Then you find the 'name'."_

Harry chuckled at the dry wit. "Cleo." _"That's short for Cleopatra, she was a great ruler in Egypt."_

_"It's good, I like it."_

Harry smiled. Things were so simple when said that way. If only...

In the back of his head, a plan hatched.


	2. The Letter from Hogwarts

It took less time than Harry remembered between his return from the zoo and the letter getting in. But he also was in a much better situation the second time around.

Cleo had quickly declared the Dursley's garden to be the perfect place for hunting since there was no other snakes. Harry still cautioned her about eating poisoned rats, but she was doing alright. She liked to sleep on Harry once she was full, dozing around his neck the whole day while Harry ambled around the house, fetching food, and moving the furniture.

Everyone was still terrified of him. It was hilarious.

The only thing he still did in the house for the Dursleys was to fetch the post. Partly for the Hogwarts letter, and later, partly because their terrified faces never failed to cheer him up, even in the funk that came with finally letting all he had lost in the last yet to be lived year before coming back hit him.

And all along, He thought on his plan.

It was a good plan. A plan he was adding to little by little, and that might get him out of all the boy-who-liver Harry-Potter related gawking.

So he wasn't surprised, but a little bit bummed when the letter from Hogwarts arrived, proclaiming to be for:

Mr. H. Potter  
The Smallest Bedroom  
4 Privet Drive  
Little Whinging  
Surrey

Harry still wasn't sure how magical identity worked.

He was quite sure there had been a good long while since he'd last thought of himself as Mr.  
Maybe it was assumed genders, just like the muggles.

But then again, the ministry of magic WAS highly corruptible, and Harry was rich and famous. Plus, he would be on Diagon alley soon. He could sort it out then.

Harry would just have to convince Hagrid to let him do that all, it shouldn't be too hard, if not the most secret way there was. Harry was absolutely sure Hagrid would come, even if the Dursleys didn't run away to a tiny island. Such was the protocol.

He tucked the letter under his shirt, hissed an answer to cleo about the number of spiders under the cupboard, brought the bill and postcard to uncle Vernon, opened the fridge for something to eat, and retreated to his room after letting Cleo go free into the cupboard for a little hunt. All of this with much more discretion than his younger self had previously shown.

-Let them be unaware until Hagrid knocks on their door-, Harry thought meanly while opening his altogether plain letter from Hogwarts

 

Hagrid didn't disappoint. He still came at Harry's birthday to 'Explain about Hogwarts" To Harry's 'poor hapless muggle relatives'.

Dudley still got himself a pig tail for scarfing down Harry's cake, Vernon still pissed himself in fear when confronted with his poor upbringing of Harry, and this time, they left for London in the very same afternoon.


	3. Diagon Alley

Professor Quirell was still exhausting, even without Voldemort on the back of his head yet, and so was celebrity. Harry enjoyed the Gringotts wagon ride just as much as he had the first time.

Maybe being in an eleven years old body affected him more than he thought.

 

When he arrived to his vault, he badgered Hagrid to let him take two hundred galleons so he could buy himself a new wardrobe, and all he needed that the Dursley had withheld from him.

Hagrid grumbled about it being a bit much, but relented after a while, saying that he'd let Dumbledore know about the change of plans.

Harry smiled and followed Hagrid and Griphook out and back in the tiny wagon.

He dispassionately watched Hagrid pick up the wrapped philosopher's stone.

 

Then came the moment of truth. Harry pointed to a visibly female catering beauty shop on their way from the bank to the robes shop. "Say, Hagrid. Do you think I could be a witch? Is that possible with magic?"

Hagrid stopped dead and stared at him-her?

"Yeh want to be a witch?"

"Well," Harry fidgeted to help sell his part of a lie. "I-I don't think I like being a boy, but... But the Dursleys say it is weird and they would hit me, so I thought maybe, if I have magic and all, I could try?"

Not of that was really a lie, except Harry felt more like a 'nothing' instead of being a 'man', than like a 'woman'. But this small lie would serve his goals. Mainly, the goal of not being The Famous Harry Potter.

Marry Evans had a nice ring to it.

Hagrid, for his part, looked like he was about to melt with contrition. "I shoulda asked yeh Harry. I am so sorry. Yes, you can be anything you want, and there are ways to be a witch for everyone."

"It's fine," Harry hurried to reassure him. "I wasn't sure it was possible. But... If you could tell them at school... Tell professor Dumbledore that I want to be called miss?"

"Yes, of course, Harry. Is it Harry?"

Harry shrugged, "I'm used to it. But... How about Marry? It's not too different, so I will still know when people are talking to me. And... What was my mother's name?"

"Lilly?"

"Yes, her maiden name? Aunt Petunia never told me hers, and... This whole everyone knowing my name thing... It's too much."

"Evans, You mother used to be Lilly Evans."

"Right." Harry-Marry nodded. "Marry Evans, then. I'll go incognito." He-she grinned playfully at Hagrid.

"Of course little miss Marry." Hagrid answered seriously with a deep bow. "Good thing yeh got all this money, yeh'll need it for buying all these frills."

M-Harry pulled a face. "No frills, thanks. I like nice clean lines. But I want long hairs, do they have anything for it?"

Hagrid smiled "Course they do!"

Harry, damn, Marry, got back out of the shop with several bags of face altering potions, and hair to his-her shoulders, with another potion that would keep lengthening it, plus several amulets with glamours, looking just like normal jewelry, but that would help him-her conceal his-argh-her 'birth sex'.

She was extremely pleased at how well her plan to skirt celebrity was going.

When it was time to finally get fitted for clothes, Marry brushed by Malfoy, already on his way out and smiled a bit as Hagrid excused himself. 

He-She got (damn) HERself a brand new wardrobe, all female presenting, at Madam Malkin's robe shop. Compete with brand new socks and stockings and all types of shoes and coats to brave the cold Highland weather.

 

At the various shops, Marry sprung up for almost Malfoy-like levels of accessories. She also took some more potion books, and a book about learning to become an animagi to while the time before he could go to school.

She cooed over Hedwig when Hagrid bought her for Marry. She had missed her so. Marry blinked fast to dispel the tears. If he-she started to cry on other lives losses, she would never stop.

Olivander was still as cryptic and creepy as Harry remembered him to be, saw right through the hair and glamors, too. But his-her old phoenix feather wand felt warm and friend-like in her hand.

Marry tried not to cry when she finally had it again, after trying most of the shop's wands.

Oh, he had not felt so filled up by something than at the very start of his relationship with Ginny.

She shook her head to dislodge the longing and horror and pain that bloomed at the thought of his once wife. And his children, oh, Lily, James, Albus...

Marry had gone back to save them all, but in her heart, she wasn't sure she could do it all again. Wasn't sure she could have a son and call him James again after watching her firstborn get killed. No. She wouldn't. She couldn't replace them, not even with themselves, the people from this time-line weren't really the same as the one he had lost. And if she did her job well, they never would become the same individuals that they had been before Harry lost them anyway.

Firstly, she was going to do her uttermost to save Fred, that would change the whole Weasley family, and for the better.

Olivander was still starring creepily. Marry smiled her worst smile in exchange, and let Hagrid pay for the wand.

 

At the end of the day, Hagrid put her in a taxi with a handful of muggle cash, her trunk (much smaller and lighter than the one she had had on the first pass, thanks to the extending and lightening charms on it) and Hedwig's cage.

Marry spent most of the ride thinking of how she was going to introduce Hedwig and Cleo, when owls sort of were amongst adder's natural predators.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the gender thing might seem upsetting, please keep in mind that this is in the 90's.  
> Also, I write in third person, but from H/Marry's POV, so everything in there is his/her voice, not mine.


	4. Short Wait

Just as Marry thought, Cleo was distinctly unhappy to have an Owl encroach on her new chosen territory.

(She had decided that Privet Drive was a great place to live, and that Harry would be safe enough in Hogwarts. Marry felt a bit heartsick at the idea of not having her around anymore, but she approved of the choice, Hogwarts was not the safest place for a common adder to be. He also smirked to know the Dursleys were likely to keep being terrified of the snake in their neighborhood.)

The Dursleys weren't aware of Marry's change in preferred address. She simply didn't wear her glamours or jewelry, and put on the more gender-neutral of her new clothes around them, and didn't correct them when they assumed her fast-growing hair was in fashion amongst wizards. (It was, thinking on it, just to the older pureblood ones.)

One of the advantages of being way older than the first time Harry lived through all these events was that she now was MUCH more chill about most things.

(Well, the kind of things that didn't wake her up in the middle of the night panting and shivering, and begging in low whispers not to kill them, to kill him instead...)

She read her books, determined that even with more cerebral plasticity due to being a child again, she was definitely not going to be an animagus, and neither could she learn the whole potion manual by heart.

Still, she understood stuff a bit more. The why, if not the how. Malfoy, once again, had helped plaster some of her long held distrust for the subject while he instructed Harry on what he was doing and why. How this would be the only vial of potion he could make, but he was really sure that it would work, because he knew how to do his job.

Marry found herself smiling fondly. Who knew. Malfoy. One of the people she held no bittersweet longings for, as he had still been alive when she had left. She was sure he would be a right ass to her Hermione and Ron as soon as he found them, but she was kind of looking forward to it.

Nostalgia.

Oh, and Sirius too.

Dumbledore and Snape... Well, that was a bit more complicated, but she would also do her best to save them.

Still, she informed Vernon of when she needed to take the train. And where, so he could laugh at her and decide to drive her there just to humiliate her, and carefully packed all her things in her trunk (That was truly more of a magic walk-in closet, except that she dropped in from the top instead of walking in).

 

On the day of the depart, she daydreamed in the car about what she would do, in the station, in the train, in Hogwarts.

She was going to need to chase the Horcruxes, but she knew she had more than enough time for it. There was one in Hogwarts, as well as a conveniently placed Basilisk, who was apparently starving, and hadn't had any conversations since Tommy the asshole.


	5. Platform 9 3/4

Marry raised an eyebrow at Vernon when he made fun of her and strolled up to the divider sedately. Feeling the magic of the gate prickle her skin as she passed it.

Once again, she had been a bit of a little shit. It was great.

She took a seat on one of the platform's benches while lovingly stroking Hedwig's neck while crowd-watching.

It was great and new to be in a crowd of witches and wizard and not to be stared and pointed at. She was getting used to it fast. Now she just had to find a way to keep her anonymity for a bit longer than simply being discovered as a transsexual (passing) witch. She would improvise.

For now there was a bit of fun to be had. Dumbledore's first test coming up, and Ron to find. She ignored the pang at her own thoughts and raised her head just in time to see a passel of redheads running through the gates. (God, how weren't there way more collisions at the entrance?)

Marry stood up and took her trunk's handle in hand, letting Hedwig perch on her other shoulder, and took a way that would naturally place her next to the Weasleys.

Then she heard her old name. "I heard Harry Potter would be in this year!"

She goggled at Ron, who was smiling widely at the twins. How had she forgotten that part?

She took a deep breath, heaved her trunk and stepped up to the train.

And put her foot right between the platform and the train.

She went down in a spectacular and painful tumble, right in front of the twins.

Well. the contact was made... It had been painful.

 

One of the twins immediately came to her help, the other shortly behind, and they swiftly but gently eased her shin from the gap. Reminding Marry that they used to be the best damn beaters ever for a reason.

And then they shattered their illusion of niceness by ribbing her. "It isn't as fun when people fall without it being for a joke, right George?"

"Sure isn't Fred."

She was almost sure they weren't using the right names. Marry made the decision to only call the twins Gred and Forge from then on.

"Wait, is that?"

"A scar?"

"On your forehead?"

Damn. Marry's hand flew too her brow, but it was too late, she had been found out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm toying with the idea of making this a pre-slash... Comment to tell me what you think of it?


	6. Plateform 9 3/4 pt2

Marry quickly patted her strategically side-parted hair back over her forehead, thinking furiously.

Those were the Weasley twins. As teens. The liked jokes a whole lot, but they were kind.

"Shhhh. I'm undercover!" Was the first think she could think to say.

"So-" Gred started. 

"That means-" Forge took over.

"That we can't tell anyone?"

"Well." Marry said thoughtfully. "You may say that you saw Harry Potter. And that the scar is lightning shaped. But don't tell anyone that I'm a girl now."

The twins looked at each other. "Do you mean-" Forge started.

"Like a joke?" Gred added, both of their faces lighting up with glee.

Oh gods, thank you. There was nothing the twins took more seriously and kept more secret than jokes.

"Yes." She said eagerly. "A very long one. You may say stuff about me, and about speaking to me, everything, but no details that point to me. Let's see how long it takes everyone to clue in."

"It's a pleasure-" Gred grinned.

"Being your co-jokester." Forge added, hand extended.

"Miss?" Gred asked in the most gentlemanly way Marry had ever seen on him.

"Marry Evans. Half blood, muggle raised, and glad to be bound to Hogwarts." She introduced herself while seizing the hand and shaking it.

"Fred"

"And George"

"Weasley."

"Jokster extraordinaire."

"Pleasure to meet you, Gred and Forge Weasley." She smiled back, shaking the other hand trust her way.

In the process, she switched the leg holding her up, and immediately wobbled with a wince.

"Oh."

"We like you."

"But we forgot."

"For your leg..."

"MOM!!"

Molly Weasley appeared at Gred's side like she had just been summoned. "What is it now, You know Ginny is... Oh dear, what happened to you, darling?"

In two swishes of her wand, Marry was cleaned and healed. "Thank you so much, Mrs Weasley." She smiled. "I missed the step."

Molly tutted and fussed a bit at Marry's clothes, making a warmth that she had thought lost forever bloom in her heart and eyes. Before she knew it, she was wholeheartedly crying on her once mother in law's arms.

"You will be alright, darling, you'll see."

She sniffled. "Thanks. Thanks. Thank you, mom."

Marry only took in what she said afterward and flinched in fear.

"Now, now. I'm sure you're very upset, it's alright to be missing your mom." Molly said kindly. Relighting the tears.

"No.. It's. I . I N-n-never-r had a m-m-mo-mom before and. Thank. Thank you, for show-showing me what it-it's like. So-sor-sorry."

Molly's eyes widenned. "Well. I never have minded being called mom before. Wouldn't have that many kids if I did, you're welcome to it, darling."

"Marry." She gasped. "I'm Marry. Thank you."

The whistle rang on her sob, and Molly looked around in panic. "On, on you get Marry. Have a good year, and owl me what house you get on, hear me?"

And just like that, Marry scampered on the train. yelled at Hedwig to fly on to Hogwarts and accepted her trunk from the twins as the train started moving.

She mopped at her nose with her sleeve and laughed awkwardly at the concerned twins. "That sure was quite the first meeting." She tried to joke.

"That it was." Gred acquiesced.

"And a good one too."

"Bye little sis."

"We have a rumor to start."

"But come and see us tomorrow at the breakfast.

"We'll introduce you."


	7. Hogwarts Express

Marry pushed her trunk (more like a really big suitcase, really) in the baggage nook and started toward the compartments, waving her wand at her face with a mutter to freshen up her blotchy face, as well as cast a sticking charm at the hair over her forehead.

And that's when she stumbled on Neville searching for his toad. A bit early, but fine. She resolved to help Neville find Percy and use the older boy's obsession with being a good prefect to make him look for the toad of a first year.

Percy was in the head wagon with the other prefects and needed very little prompting to go look for a toad with nothing but a 'point me' and a blubbering eleven years old.

Marry smiled and went back her way to find a free compartment.

Ron was alone at the very back. Marry knocked on the door. "Hey. You must be one of the Weasleys?"

Ron immediately snapped up, defenses visible in his eyes. "And what's it to you?"

Marry shrugged, hiding a wince. "Well, I was kind of adopted by your mom just now, and Gred and Forge called me their little sister, so I thought it would be nice to know you."

Ron relaxed. "Yeah? How did that happen?"

"I called her mom, then admitted I never actually had one before, and she said I had to owl her after the Sorting..." Marry smiled in what she hopped was a nice way.

Ron was looking a bit tense. "Well, I'm sorry about your other mom, but I'd love to have a sister my age, You know, Ginny is nice, but she's the baby, so..."

Ron was apparently less keen on complaining about the lack when confronted to a girl that wanted to be his sister. That was good to know.

When the trolley witch passed by, Marry used her trump card of 'we'll say I'm the big sister and you can't complain if I want to give you stuff' to make Ron accept his share of sweets.

She then looked in her purse for her blemishes and stubborn magical traces remover, and declared that the spot on Ron's nose had been bugging her from the start before removing it for him. That was already great progress.

Hermione dropped by toward the end of the journey. There was no broken glasses for her to fix since Harry had gotten them changed in Diagon Alley, no Neville looking for his toad, and no Ron trying to show off magic, so she just said they should think about changing before going back on her way.

Marry went to retrieve her trunk and hopped in to change into a cute dress (the kind she would have loved to put little Lily in, if he had ever managed to get her to stay put long enough) and her robe, then climbed out of her walk-in closet.

Ron was in his Robes too, but he was goggling at the trunk in awe. "Yeah, it's great."

"It must cost a fortune."

And there it was. Marry winced. "Kind of, but the fortune in question cost me both of my parents and my whole childhood, so you know, not everything is great either."

Ron blushed and nodded at the gentle rebuke. "Sorry."

"I know it must be irritating, but you wouldn't trade your whole family in for my vault and you know it. Don't get greedy or you might lose everything. It's kind of a muggle proverb."

Ron cleared his throat. Marry decided they could change the subject.

When the train got to Hogwarts, she wondered at the lack of visit from Malfoy, but decided it must be because she was undercover and let it go.


	8. Hogwarts

Marry went along with the other first year, letting the comfortable nostalgia wrap around her like a cloak.

This had been his first home, the place where he first found himself to be capable, to be irreplaceable and talented at what he did. The place where he first found his family.

And what was even more comforting was that she felt now again Hogwarts' magic in her heart, welcoming her, and promising once ore to do all of that one more time.

 

After the horrific attack and massacre at the Burrow, Harry had found himself more sensitive to magic currents, and their intents.

He had blamed the potion, but Malfoy had told him it was unlikely. More likely was the fact that Harry himself had attuned himself to environmental magic more accurately for lack of anything useful he could do then.

The fact that the ability had followed her in her younger body spoke for Malfoy's theory.

But anyway, now she felt welcomed, promised everything she needed to become a strong adult.

She felt the castle and ground stake it's new students and swear to help them. It was... Magic.

She climbed in the boat in some kind of trance, and was transfixed at her first glimpse of Hogwarts just like all the eleven years around her.

-Hogwarts, I'm home-

-Yes you are- the wind seemed to answer. And she felt herself start to silently cry with gladness.

She tried to be discreet about moping up her tears. Glad too that as a girl, she wouldn't be judged much for them if anyone saw.

She felt all of a sudden like she could understand Lovely Luna Lovegood much easier now.

When she finally met her.

The Quibbler could be a great help in her plan to pacify the Wizarding world.

She took a deep, relieved breath. She almost felt Hogwarts take hold of her darkest thoughts and drawing them out of her in the exhale.

And then she stepped out of the boat, following Hagrid.

 

She saw the opportunity to privately confirm the issue of Dumbledore's first test when professor McGonagall came to them.

She waited for the speech to be finished, then asked for a word in private.

Professor McGonagall looked surprised, which to the untrained eye could also look like censure, and bid her to hurry along then.

She steered Marry in an unused classroom before asking what seemed to be the problem.

"Hum. I'm. Well. I was. I am."

"What are you, miss."

the honorific gave Marry the courage to finally speak. "I was born a boy." That got her raised eyebrows. "Harry Potter. But... I don't like being a boy, and I hate the fame, so..."

Professor McGonagall kept on patiently looking at her.

"I asked Hagrid to pass the message that I want to be called Miss Marry Evans. I just wanted to check that I am not going to be misnamed or misgendered in front of the whole school."

The sentence flowed out smoothly, and Marry spared a moment to be grateful that she had practiced thinking of herself as a girl for a month. Otherwise it would have been a lie, and she surely would have betrayed it. She had never been a good liar.

Professor McGonagall slid the name scroll from her robes. "I understand your fear, but I assure you that. ..." She stared at the parchment. Her month tightened in ire, she cleared her throat and took over again. "I assure you that I will not be calling you a name you don't like. Thank you for telling me in advance, young miss Evans."

And there it was. The first test had been failed. Marry didn't know which first name had been written, but the last name had to be Potter.

"Thank you." She didn't know what Dumbledore intended by marking her out as the boy who lived, but he had proved himself rather handily to be untrustworthy, that was for sure. "I also wanted to ask for the dorms? I mean, I'm not... I'm not grown enough yet to... To really change my body, so I don't want." The tears that had stayed close to the surface all day came back. "I don't want to be put with the boys, or to be seen by the girls. I."

"I understand your circumstances, miss Evans, and will make sure to inform your head of house of your situation as soon as we all know who it is. In the meantime, you need to go back with the others to wait."

Professor McGonagall cast a cleaning charm at her face and escorted her back to the rest of the class. Marry felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her chest.


	9. The Sorting Hat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is longuer than most, and could look to have mostly fluff (the filler kind) but I wanted to get every single student sorted. I now have a list of them that I intend to use!

She stood with the others, only conscious enough to tell Ron that of course it wouldn't be dangerous. Not on the very first day. It looked bad to lose students.

It didn't seem to really calm him, but a wave of murmurs started from her and spread out, seeming to calm the whole of the room.

 

They followed professor McGonagall to the great hat and the Sorting hat sang its song.

""Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,  
But don't judge on what you see,  
I'll eat myself if you can find  
A smarter hat than me.  
You can keep your bowlers black,  
Your top hats sleek and tall,  
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat  
And I can cap them all.  
There's nothing hidden in your head  
The Sorting Hat can't see,  
So try me on and I will tell you  
Where you ought to be.   
You might belong in Gryffindor,   
Where dwell the brave at heart,   
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry   
Set Gryffindors apart;   
You might belong in Hufflepuff,   
Where they are just and loyal,   
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true   
And unafraid of toil;   
Or yet in wise old   
Ravenclaw, if you've a ready mind,   
Where those of wit and learning,   
Will always find their kind;   
Or perhaps in Slytherin   
You'll make your real friends,   
Those cunning folk use any means   
To achieve their ends.   
So put me on!   
Don't be afraid!   
And don't get in a flap!   
You're in safe hands   
(though I have none)   
For I'm a Thinking Cap!"

Then the sorting started.

"Abbott, Hannah!"  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Bones, Susan!"  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Boot, Terry!"  
"RAVENCLAW!"

"Brocklehurst, Mandy!"  
"RAVENCLAW!"

"Brown, Lavender!"  
"GRYFFINDOR!"

"Bulstrode, Millicent!"  
"SLYTHERIN!"

"Corner, Michael!"  
"RAVENCLAW!"

"Cornfoot, Stephen!"  
"RAVENCLAW!"

"Crabbe, Vincent!"  
"SLYTHERIN!"

"Davis, Tracey!"  
"SLYTHERIN!"

"Entwhistle Kevin"  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"

There it was. "Evans, Marry!"

She was looking straight at the head table and noticed Dumbledore's smile faltering.  
Snape, on the other hand sat up ramrod straight eyes open wide and starring at Marry as she confidently walked to the stool and sat

Then the Hat seemingly swallowed her whole head.

'Hmmm. Interresting. Very interesting. You are not when you should be, Marry. Or Harry?'  
-Marry, please. Harry died with his family.-  
'Such determination. And knowledgeable about yourself too. No, I can see what the alternate chose, but I think this you would fit all four houses.'  
-I'm really bad at riddles, please not Ravenclaw.-  
'Well, that is sound reasoning, at least. Will you insist against Slytherin yet again?'  
-No, it would fit my goals, but I think the green light is depressing and I'm already depressed enough.-  
'Tough client. No, you have lost the edge of your bravery with time, and shown much loyalty instead. Better be' "HUFFLEPUFF!"

Marry stood under the claps and hoots. She noticed that the twins were still cheering for her, and it warmed her poor heart.

She walked and sat and the sorting resumed.

"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"

She clapped and scooted to give him space.

"Finnigan, Seamus!" took almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor. Marry clapped along with the Gryffindors for her once-friend, even if that got her wieard looks. This too could be a good first step to avoiding the Civil Wizarding War.

"Goyle, Gregory!"  
"SLYTHERIN!"

Marry hesitated a moment, then decided tat she would not be rooting out the causes of the wars by integrating everyone but Slytherins, so she clapped once more.

"Granger, Hermione!" Hermione almost ran to the stool.  
"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat.  
Marry clapped a bit more enthusiastically, despite the startled looks she was getting. Hermione was great, she deserved to be praised.

"Greengrass, Daphne!"  
"SLYTHERIN!" Marry just kept on clapping, Daphne had never been particularly mean to him on her first life.

"Hopkins, Wayne!"  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"

She grinned at her new housemate while still clapping.  
Her hands were starting to ache. She was certain she's once knew of a hand shape that made clapping louder and less painful...

"Jones, Megan!"  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"

She decided that as a first year, she was allowed to yell "WELCOME!" while clapping.

"Li, Sue"  
"RAVENCLAW!"

Marry had made her choice, and she would keep to it. And she was starting to see other first years imitating her (not in Slytherin, though, or more, some had tried, but they had stopped after a word from their upperclassmen).

"Longbottom, Neville!"  
"GRYFFINDOR," Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter and sporadic claps to give it back.

"MacDougal, Isobel."   
"RAVENCLAW!"

"Macmillan, Ernie!"  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Malfoy, Draco!"  
Malfoy was a lot less swaggery than Marry remembered him as he walked forth, and instead of being immediately sent to Slytherin, the hat swallowed his head and stayed here for a minute before yelling out "HUFFLEPUFF!"

Marry started to suspect that something might be up.  
Malfoy sat frozen for a second when the hat lifted, wide eyed and looking right at Marry, before he shook himself out of it and scampered to the Hufflepuff table. Marry smiled at him, yelling to make up for the sudden hush, but her mind was whirring furiously. Malfoy sat as far from her as he could get, which only cemented her suspicions.  
"Malone, Roger!"  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Moon, Lily!"  
"GRYFFINDOR!"

Weirdly, Marry didn't even remember her. But the applause to her sorting was starting to sound unanimous.

"Nott, Theodore!"  
"SLYTHERIN!"

"Parkinson, Pansy!"  
"SLYTHERIN!"

"Patil, Padma!"  
"RAVENCLAW!"

"Patil, Parvati"  
"GRYFFINDOR!"

"Perks, Sally-Anne"  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"

 

The lack of a Potter was almost palpable in the hush and then the brouhaha that welcomed "Rivers, Oliver!"  
"RAVENCLAW!"

"Roper, Sophie!"  
"HUFFLEPUFF!" Despite the murmurs about 'Potter' 'Where is Harry Potter', The applause was starting to get more unanimous. Even the older students getting caught by the good cheer of an ovation for everyone

"Runcorn, Devah!"  
"SLYTHERIN!"

Well, okay, the Slytherins would require some more work to be as well liked as the others, but Marry had seven years to work on that.

"Smith, Sally!"  
"GRYFFINDOOR!"

"Thomas, Dean,"  
"GRYFFINDOR!"

"Turpin, Lisa,"  
"RAVENCLAW!"

"Weasley, Ronald!" Took longer than Marry remembered, then got sorted, unsurprisingly, in.  
"GRYFFINDOR!" Marry clapped even louder for her brother. A single glance at Malfoy had him clapping along. More and more suspicious.

"Zabini, Blaise!"   
"SLYTHERIN!"

Dumbledore stood and said some nonsense before gesturing for the banquet to begin. Marry fell to it gratefully, but less excessively than for her first welcoming feast.


	10. Hufflepuff

She saw Professor McGonagall, lean over to Professor Sprout and start talking with her in hushed manner during the dinner. She felt a stab of pain in her scar as Quirel turned his back to her that reminded her that this body still had a Horcrux in it. And too, she saw Snape steal glances at her, frowning a bit.

Stuff was already changing for the better.

She also covertly watched Malfoy, who was doing his best not to look at her at all, but still glanced from times to times.

A damn liar, that's what he was. Only one dose of the time turning potion, right?

Despite her condemning thoughts, she was still so relieved that saving the world didn't fall on her shoulders alone. That there might be just one person who understood what she was going through. And this person was even in her House.

-Well, thank you, Hogwarts-

This time there was no answer but a slight warmth that told her she'd been heard.

Before she knew it, Dumbledore was standing again and declaring once again that the forbidden forest is forbidden, that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors... About Quidditch trials, and finally: "I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death." The forbidden corridor. Where the Philosopher's stone was hidden, who even hid those kind of things in a school?

Then they sang, and Marry was getting ready to follow the Hufflepuff prefect when Professor Sprout waylaid her.

"Professor McGonagall told me about your special circumstances." Marry grimaced a bit, but Professor Sprout took it kindly. "I know you would prefer to keep all this secret, follow me."

When Marry was sat at what she assumed to be the Hufflepuff head of House's office, she closed the door and spoke again.

"You must know, miss Evans, that I encourage all my students to be true to themselves and do that which truly makes them happy. As such, I am very proud of you for your behavior today and all the days since you have started presenting your own chosen gender instead of one chosen for you."

Marry felt heated from the heartfelt words. "Thank you. How. How much did Professor McGonagall tell you?"

Professor Sprout nodded. "She told me your birth name, your reasons for changing your preferred gender of address, and that you don't want to be put in dorms. I approve of your choices, and I have already sent word to get you a room prepared. It will be small." There was a glance of warning there. "But it has it's own shower, so as not to force you to share it with people you would rather didn't see your body. It has simply been very long since it last was used, so you may have to wait a bit. In the meantime, I would like to know what you want to tell the other students about your lodging situation, so I may say the same."

Marry thought for a short times. "We could, tell them I have night terrors. I sometimes wake up screaming." That was also true, both Dudley and his old Gryffindor mates could tell that.

Professor Sprout nodded. "That is a very good excuse. And if there is any truth to this story, I expect you to go see Madam Pomfresh in the infirmary to discuss it with her."

Marry nodded, not knowing if she would go through with it in truth.

Professor sprout stood an led Marry to the door, then showed her the barrel she needed to crawl through to get in Hufflepuff's common room and the tap to open it, then she told her a prefect would let her know when her room was ready.

The Hufflepuff common room was even more homely than the Gryfindor one, Marry would not have believed it if someone told her, but the truth was there. It looked like a much less crowded Burrow, except with vegetation everywhere. There were even many windows, though they were all quite high on the wall, and currently showed only starlight and moonlight.

Hedwig hooted and dove at her.

Well, since she was set to wait, she could as well write to her new mom and tell her everything about how pleased she was to be in Hufflepuff.


	11. The Liar

Marry really was happy in Hufflepuff. The atmosphere was warm and friendly in the common room, the perpetual sunniness helped get the hang on her homework, and everyone had been so understanding of her half lie for being in a single room that she almost wanted to come clean about her birth gender. She had the sneaking suspicion that she might not have a choice. The Harry Potter rumors were flying, and at some point she just knew she would be uncovered. But not yet.

Her first potion lesson had been much better than when she was still a boy. Snape, instead of targetting her, had instead decided to ignore her until further notice. It did wonders for her concentration

What really bugged her was that a week in, she still hadn't managed to get Malfoy alone. He sure was skilled at avoiding her, and she didn't have the Marauder's map yet to track him down. Though if it went on, she might ask it of the twins and take back up the old hobby of starring at it in search for Malfoy...

But in the end, an opportunity stroke first.

On Monday, at the last lesson of her third week, Malfoy got up with the same hast but was waylaid by professor McGonagall for a word, and so Marry was able to get out first and wait for him in the corridor.

She told everyone she wanted to discuss a thing with Draco (because it was Draco to Hufflepuffs) about his cousin, and they left her to wait alone.

When Malfoy got out of the classroom, she almost tripped him for old time's sake, but decided it would be a bad start and settled for getting out of her hiding nook right in front of him. "Hello, Draco."

She saw him think of escaping, and decided to cut it short by seizing his wrist. "Er, hello, Marry." He drawled, not sounding half as relaxed as he was trying.

Marry decided to torture him a bit, besides, it would make her excuse real. "So, you're a Black, right?"

"What?"

"Black, As in Sirius Black, Regulus Black, Narcissia Black and Andromeda Black?"

"Yes? Well, I'm a Malfoy." He tried again.

"Oh, good. So you know that Sirius is my godfather?"

"I, No? I, I thought he was Harry Potter's godfather..."

Marry smiled widely, deciding it was time to cut the chase. "Well, see, I have a secret... I'm Harry Potter and I'm from the future."

Malfoy floundered, then put on a sneer. "You're mad, more like, let me go!"

She let go of his wrist, and Malfoy immediately started running away. "Fine, pretend all you like." She cried after him, voice getting louder as he got further away. "But you at least owe me your father's diary!"

That got her a weird look from passing fourth years, but she didn't care. Her message had been passed on.

Now, since she was already wired up and irritated, she supposed it was time to visit a Basilisk. She just needed to hop by the kitchen first to get him a big chunk of meat to eat first.


	12. The Basilisk

As it turned out, the Basilisk was much friendlier when it hadn't spoken to Riddle's shade first.

And when Marry came with food.

Still, she kept her eyes closed as she hissed the password, and found it to be a very good thing, because, as she found out pretty quickly, the Basilisk had no eyelids.

He assured her that he used to. _"But the last heir removed them."_

Damn Tommy the asshole.

 

As soon as the Basilisk ate enough to quiet the folly in his mind, he told her more about himself.

He wasn't really meant to kill muggleborns, but to protect the castle against hostile muggle armies. (Back in the dark ages.)

He was meant to be called to battle by Slytherin's heir, that much was true, but the battle had shifted over the last few centuries. Turning against the inside of the castle.

He could not eat petrified preys. Of any kind.

He had been starving.

Marry was enraged on his behalf. And feeling a bit guilty that it had teken her that long to come feed him already dead preys.

The basilisk assured her it was alright and that he (she, he corrected as soon as she told him she preferred to be female) was the best master he'd ever had, Salazar or his son aside.

_"And do you have a name. On that is just yours?"_

_"I uzzed to. But I forgott itt."_

Her chest ached for the poor beast. _"Then can I name you again?"_

_"Please do. It hass been sso long ssincce I had a name of my own. I misss itt."_

_"Then you will be"_ "Micheal." _"Like the archangel who protects against evil."_ The name really fit the Basilisk left behind for a millennium to protect a school against armies. Michael agreed with her that it was a good name.

Marry left the chamber of secret with a promise to come again, an advice to ask for the tunnel to make her stairs to get back up, and a new objective to plan for.

The new objective had to include Snape. A perspective that disturbed her enough that she managed to get drenched in vinegar for the fifth time in three weeks when coming back to her common room.


	13. First

The harder really was to look like she was a clueless first year and not an accomplished Auror. A problem that was a bit less difficult in potions, alright, but that even the headaches created by Tommy's shade could make easier for almost everything else.

Botching stuff up in a natural looking way wasn't as easy as it looked.

She went to see Michael everyday. At first he fell onto whatever meat she brought with her with ravenous appetite, then he told her that he needed one meal a week.

On her free time, Marry worked on permanently transfiguring some of Dudley's old clothes she had brought with her into a good blindfold that Michael would be able to sever with a good chew, but that was not a permanent solution. Though it was a good first step, especially if she was going to involve Snape to heal Michael's eyelids.

And it would allow Michael to hunt on his own without having all his preys getting petrified on him. Thinking of that, she should really let Michael know about the Acromentulas in the forbidden forest. With a little luck, he would like spiders just like Cleo did.

 

In the meantime, she rather uneventfully fetched the bust that Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem was on, and brought it back down to the chamber of secrets in the dead of night for Michael to poison.

The scream as the soul shard died was the most action she saw that night. Not even the fear of Filch bothered her, since she had bribed her awesome twin brothers to make a commotion as far from her path as they could get.

Her correspondence with Molly Weas- mom, was heartfelt but dull. She visited Hagrid once a week, and the house elves every two days. The classes were only challenging in as so much that she needed to look like she was struggling. Her new brothers loved and doted on her. She didn't see much of Ron or Hermione since they were indifferent Houses, and Marry really didn't want to start reading books of fiction since prophecies tended to feature heavily in them and she hated prophecies.

Besides, she was a first year, and not allowed to play Quiddich.

All in all, aside from writing homework and bugging Malfoy, she was getting bored.

So she set out to learn new things.

Potion seemed like a good way to have reason to annoy Malfoy, but she was truly mediocre in it.

Advanced spell-casting would set her out.

She remembered a book she had started to read as Harry, before the prophecy in it came out and annoyed him right out of reading it for Ginny. It it the young heroine learned knife throwing. She decided it would be a useful skill to have, so she owl ordered a big set of throwing knives, transfigured a target and found herself a tree to practice against.


	14. Troll

Malfoy was still avoiding her studiously two months into the year. He looked hunted any time she was close, but pretty happy when he was far away. Some discreet asking had told her that he woke in the middle of the night, screaming 'not them, pleas not them' and that maybe he should have his single room too.

Marry decided to inform Professor Sprout of that finding. Anonymously.

But she was sure he was scamming her, and she wanted to know why, then have someone she could use as support and who she could do the same for. Which means speaking to him, again. In a way he wouldn't be able to run away from. She as starting to think she could include that to her plan with Snape.

Michael was very happy about his blindfold, and had indeed taken to hunting acromentulas, which he said to be challenging and fun, as well as useful for the protection of the school, and therefore something he had to do too. Marry was happy to see life come back to him, even if she cautioned about the roosters by Hagrid's hut, and the need to only hunt at night.

The rumors about Harry Potter had mutated into something halfway between a game, and a whack-job theory.

Any boy could be suspected to be Harry Potter, and curious people would then try to touch their forehead, in search for a charm-hidden lightning shaped scar (which was as much as anyone knew for sure about Harry Potter, since the twins had found it funny to start opposing rumors about everything else).

Marry was a bit amused, and a lot exasperated by the breach in personal space the game brought around. She was glad it was only boys targeted, but the fact that the search for Harry Potter hadn't exhausted itself yet cautioned her that it might not do so at all. The moment when she would be found out was approaching fast.

But in the meantime, Halloween was also approaching, and with it, it's troll. And maybe Hermione in danger...

On the night of Halloween's feast, Marry ate fast, and kept her ears wide open for a mention of Hermione being in the lavatory.

Turns out that Ron had been an asshole to her, and she was in there when Quirrell came in yelling.

Marry went to join Ron at the Gryffindor group and crossed her arms. "So, Hermione, crying alone in the girl's bathroom?..."

Ron went red. "I."

"She's in danger, Ron, will you come help me save her?"

Ron gulped but nodded. Marry took his wrist in one hand, and sneaked around the professors and prefects.

By chance, Malfoy was in their path, she snagged him with her other hand and started running, towing both indignant boys with her.

The old strategy of using the troll's club against him had been a success, so Marry directed Ron to do just that while she and Malfoy alternatively baited the troll.

Once it was done, Marry took hold of Hermione and Ron, and urged them to run away, trusting Malfoy to come along on his own.

They barely missed the professors, and Marry led everyone to the Hufflepuff common room where they would all look as innocent as they could.

"If anyone asks, you were with us at the table, and you felt it safer to come back to the Hufflepuff common room" She panted while tapping the correct barrel."


	15. Revelation

Risking death (and according to Hermione, expulsion) together had made the four of them fast friends. They met up whenever they could. Malfoy still avoided being alone with Marry, but he seemed less stressed now.

Ron and Hermione were practically glued together at all times, and the twins had actually carried Ron in triumph when they had learned of the escapade.

All in all, a glowing success.

The first Quiddich match came and went (Gryffindor lost).

Christmas was approaching fast, and Marry was looking forward to spending it alone in the castle practicing knife throwing. Though Mom wanted her to come to the Burrow, she argued that it wouldn't be possible because people didn't recognize her as her true mom yet.

It was only as she went to write her name on the list that she noticed another name already there. Draco Malfoy.

This seemed strange at first, since he was still avoiding being alone with her, but then she thought that he might not know she was going to stay too, and gleefully added Marry Evans to the list.

Maybe the blow of being sorted in Hufflepuff still hadn't been softened for his family and Draco was avoiding them.

Name written, Marry just had to refine her plan and wait for the holidays.

When the other students finally went away, Marry could scarcely contain her nervous energy. There was just so much to do.

She had begged the twins to lend her the map for the holiday (they had wholeheartedly lent it to her after a moment of being stupefied she even knew about it) , so the first phase was observation.

Since she couldn't find a convenient time to talk to both Snape and Malfoy, she used plan B

"Professor Snape?" She piped up during a meal. "Draco and I need to speak to you after."

Malfoy sent her a panicked look. Which had all the professor looking at Snape meaningfully. Snape accepted to speak with them. Perfect.

As soon as Snape closed the door to his office behind Marry and Malfoy, Marry spoke up.

"As you know, I was born Harry Potter."

Snape nodded with a 'get to the point' expression.

"And I came back from a future world thanks to a potion made with a time turner."

Snape frowned. "You truly will look for any excuse to draw attention to you."

Marry smiled. "No, but I can prove I'm saying the truth."

"How" asked Snape. "Things that haven't happened make no proof."

"I know." She answered dramatically. "That you're a spy from the order on Voldemort. You truly are loyal to my side because you vowed so on my mother's tomb. My dad and Sirius were horrible to you in school, and you once lashed out against mom in retaliation. She hasn't spoken to you since. And the one who betrayed the fidelus charm is Peter Pettigrew."

"I also know that Draco would do anything to protect his mother, and her him, and that this might end by you having to kill Dumbledore to save him and solidify your place in Voldemort's ranks so you might later save me.

"And finally, I know that Voldemort has split his soul in seven parts, that's why we can't kill him. My scar is one, there are still four or five other at the moment, though I know where most of them are.

They both looked at her doubtfully, though Snape's expression was better than Draco's. 

"And there's a Basilisk in Salazar Slytherin's secret chamber that needs medical help."

that was the last straw. Snape went to the door angrily. "If you are quite done making me lose my time..."

"I can prove that one." Marry strode confidently up to the door. "You just have to follow me, and I will show him to you."

Snape frowned. "And why did this whole charade involve mister Malfoy?" he asked.

Marry smiled. "Because he was the one who made the potion, and I'm sure he took some too."

Draco jumped to his feet. "You can't prove it!" He yelled.

Marry shrugged. "The fact that you are in Hufflepuff and avoid me like the plague seems proof enough. I am not angry, you know. Not anymore. I just want you to be my ally in avoiding the wars to come."


	16. His Reason

Marry led Draco and Snape to Myrtle's bathroom. Everyone was silent since her declaration of forgiveness. Snape was probably waiting to see, and Draco thinking on her words.

She hissed to the sink, which opened, drawing gasps from the two men behind her. Then she asked for stairs and started down the tunnel. "Come on in!"

She asked for the passage to close behind them, and started the long trek down. The return would be worse.

She knocked on the big doors before opening them. "MICHAEL" _"you've got visit!"_

_"Who?"_

_"The one who came from the future with me, and the one who can repair your eyelids."_

_"Nicce."_

Michael slithered out of his huddle to come greet them. Blindfold still well in place.

"Professor Snape, Malfoy. This is Michael. Voldemort cut his eyelids out, so if he removes the blindfold, he will petrify anyone who crosses his path. I thought that two potion geniuses such as you might find a way to heal him."

Michael bowed when his name was called, then darted his tongue out to taste the smell of the two men. _"Thhey are affraid."_

 _"You're a very big ssnake."_ Marry was starting to catch an accent in Parseltongue. She found it cute.

"What did he say?" Draco asked.

"He knows he's frightening." She shrugged. "He should be, he was left here to repel armies." She crossed her arms and looked pointedly from the Potion masters to the Basilisk. "So?"

"Well." Snape answered. "We would have to see the damage to know, but..."

Ensued a long and dangerous game of look only at the severed eyelid. Marry helped shift the blindfold little by little, while Snape of Draco looked at the eye via a mirror (in case of mishap).

No one was petrified in the process, but they were all drenched in sweat by the time Draco and Snape had determined that they could at least try to brew a few potions to restore the damage.

(Marry didn't follow anything in the rest of the conversation. She thought they spoke of reversing the natural healing and scarring, then making a healing helper and something else. She was of no use whatsoever there.)

It was on their way back from the girl's bathroom to their common room, after bidding Snape goodbye that Marry finally managed to have the conversation she had been waiting for with Malfoy.

"Why were you avoiding me?"

"I thought you were still angry about my lie."

Marry pursed her lips. "I am not, but... Will you tell me why you did it?"

Malfoy sneered. "I wanted to make sure things changed in the correct way."

She told herself the jab at her was a reflex and tried again. "But why did you let me think there was only enough for me?"

Draco cleared his throat awkwardly. "I was... concerned that once you knew you would keep me from coming back with you. It was easier to conceal it and come in secret than to have you knowing and trying to keep me from coming too."

Marry got it better, but still there was a part... "You were the one who came to me telling me about the potion. Why did you do it if you mistrusted me so?"

Draco twisted his lips unhappily. "You do know that you're one of the major influences of this time, right? You were my best chance to have someone come back who was able to do something about the events of our past. I didn't even know there might be enough for two when I contacted you anyway."

Marry nodded. She was not so happy about everything, but she saw Draco's point for hiding now. "Well, anyway, now that we have removed that hurdle. Do you suppose we could be there for each-other?"

She didn't add 'instead of hiding out', but it looked like Draco had heard it anyway. He went stiff, then relaxed and sighed, hand coming up to massage his face. "Yeah".

"Good, because you still owe me a diary."


	17. Second

The holidays were almost too relaxing for Marry.

She filled it with owls to the Weasleys, horrible nightmare sharing with Draco, and retelling how she'd won the last time to Draco and Snape.

In the end it was Snape who brought back the ring, once Marry had told him where to find it, and for god's sake, don't touch it with your bare hand, that's what killed Dumbledore. Draco shot her a weird look.

Right before christmas, the three co-conspirators found themselves in the chamber of secret. The ring was still magically calling to be worn, but Draco poured the glass of venom on it fast enough after it was unwrapped that no one could even reach for it.

everyone watched breathlessly as the venom started to bubble and the metal of the ring dissolved. The silent scream sounded once more in Marry's head, as the venom mixed with the black blood, bubbling up and up until it disappeared, leaving only an innocuous black stone behind.

Marry swallowed and closed the box.

"And that's two." Marry smiled. "Only four or five to go." She noticed the looks aimed at her. "Hey, I don't know if Nagini is here yet... Speaking about Nagini, are you really that horrible at teaching occlumency, or was it just because you hated me?"

Snape gaped at her.

She waited him out patiently. 

Snape shook his head. "I have never been known to be able to teach that well to children who don't already have a talent for the subject." He explained softly. "I wouldn't even be a teacher today if it wasn't for the necessity if being a spy."

She was a bit surprised at how upfront Snape was being, but she could appreciate it. "And I guess the other you's hatred for me didn't make it easier..."

"I could teach you." She turned to Draco, surprised of his words. "I don't know how good a teacher I am, but my occlumency is perfect, I could help you?"

"You would?" She heaved a great sigh of relief. "Good."

Now for the next part of her plan, she needed to free Sirius. She had a plan. It was going to be hilarious.

But for now, she had a very long 'merry Christmas, also I'm secretly Harry Potter' letter to write to Molly. The trust in her for giving out this secret was really the best gift she could think of for her mom.


	18. Occlumency

"Clear your mind."

Marry wondered if hitting Draco would make her mind clearer.

"Clear... Well, we've got work to do." Draco sighed. Marry opened her eyes to see him looking at her thoughtfully. "You don't know how to clear your mind, do you?"

"No."

Draco sighed. "Okay, so there are two ways to do it. Forcefully and passively." He pursed his lips in thoughts. "For now let's go with forcefully, it will prove to you that you can do it."

"Yeah. Prove it." She was maybe a little childish, but she didn't care, half an hour and still nothing.

"So, let's go with a metaphor. Picture yourself fighting He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-"

"You know if you don't want to call him Voldemort you could always call him Tom. I know I do."

Draco stared back evenly. "Such respect for someone's chosen form of address from you Potter, I'm awed."

"Well there's always Voldy, then?"

"You're trying to distract me, and no. So you're facing Him off." Marry nodded, she could picture that. "On a broom."

"What?"

"It's a metaphor!" Draco cried, throwing his hands up toward the ceiling of the cozy room that the seventh's floor corridor had provided them. "You're on a broom, and you need to catch the snitch to kill Him."

"That sounds like a nightmare I used to have when Voldy was still alive." Marry provided truthfully.

"Good." Draco spat more forcefully than required. "That means your mind was trying to use occlumency to protect you in your sleep. Now stop interrupting me. Think about the snitch. You won't catch it unless you are completely focused on it. You can't think of Him, or of what happens if you lose, or the Bulgers, or the players, or the crowd, not even juvenile nemeses dressed up as Dementors on the pitch."

Marry smiled at the joke, and tried to picture the snitch, as vividly as she could, as if she was in one of her old nightmares.

"Once you can only think of the snitch, when your whole mind is focused on it, i is clear of anything else. The person you are occluding against can only see your snitch, all else is hidden. It's very important that you chase the snitch without thinking of anything else, and also that you don't catch it too soon. As soon as you caught it, the snitch can't protect you anymore.

Marry frowned. She was starting to see what Draco meant, but it was awfully difficult. Unless. "You mean I'm in a race against the snitch, then?"

She opened her eyes. to see Draco smiling. "Yes exactly." He looked at his watch. "But come, it's curfew soon, we wouldn't want to oversleep on Christmas, now. You can practice snitch racing in your own room."


	19. Christmas Morning

She woke up giddier than she remembered being for years on Christmas morning.

She was officially a child, and she had friends and a family, so she could expect gifts. Ones that were fun, not simply useful in an adult's life.

She jumped out of her yellow and black Hufflepuff bed and raced to the common room to check out the tree, .

She was momentarily blinded by the sunniness of the common room.

"Hello, sleeping beauty." Said a familiar drawl, as Marry was shading her eyes with her hands while trying not to touch her glasses to avoid smudging them. It was just habit, since these glasses had a charm against getting dirty.

She stuck her tongue out at him by sheer habit. "Did you wait for me?"

"Yes, but I was about to go pound on your door to wake you." Marry paused at the haughtiness. It had been a long time since Draco spoke to her that way. "Just kidding, I woke up three minutes ago."

Marry smiled widely, relaxing. "Well, come on then, let us enjoy our second childhood!" She ran for the tree and threw herself down next to the preset pile. "Do you have any idea how tacky I was for presents this year?"

"Very, undoubtedly." Draco drawled while more sedately making his way to his presents.

Marry checked the urge to hit him. An urge that she was coming to suspect was simply a side-effect of his presence. "I sent every Weasley ten gallons, wrote to them it was a muggle custom to send money when you had no idea what they would like. I'm sure mom will be very cross at me in her next letter. She might even send them all back."

To her surprise, Draco was actually listening to her. "And what will you do if she does."

Marry smiled impishly. "Send them right back and add that it's rude to return a present no matter what custom we're talking from."

Draco snorted. "And what if she sends them back again?" he asked while opening a box that seemed to contain a watch. He smiled and immediately put it on, before tapping it twice with his wand.

Marry also ripped the cover of one of her presents off, discovering, to no surprise at all, one of Molly's legendary hand-knit sweaters in emerald green. She immediately put on too. "Then I will keep the ones for the boys to give them when they reach Hogwarts, point out how much time she spent on my own present." She gestured to her green sweater. "And that I really wanted to send presents to my new family even while not knowing them, insist that my little sister buys herself something nice with the money, exchange Arthur's gallons for muggle banknotes, and owl-order very good yarn for mom with hers so she can't complain that I sent money."

Draco laughed. "You're so fucking stubborn, sometimes. No, all the time, actually."

Marry decided to take it as a compliment, preening as she reached for the next packet. "I know, right?"

"Is it actually?" Draco suddenly asked while ripping intricately folded paper from his next present.

"What?" Marry reacted, a little distracted with dipping her finger in the fudge to eat it.

"Is it a muggle custom to send money, or was it a lie?"

Marry swallowed her mouthful of sweets. "Well, technically it is... For grandparents to their grandchildren."

Draco laughed again. He looked better when he was happy. She smiled then started to giggle along, while ripping open the roughly packaged flute from Hagrid. No fifty-pence coin this time though. The cape would come later in the night, if it did, that might be one of the things that would change with her name, gender and House.

"Hey, now that we have properly bounded over presents, would you help me plot my next move?"

"That sure was a very Slytherin question."

"Oh, come on, I'm only not in Slytherin because the green light would make me want to hang myself."

Draco chocked on nothing. It was entertaining to see.

"But I really need your help to figure out how to get Snape to adopt me."


	20. Prophecy

"Okay, but tell me again why you need Professor Snape to adopt you."

"Because he's the only one who could make Dumbledore not force me to go back to my aunt."

"But why does he want you there?"

Marry sighed. "Because Dumbledore knows the prophecy." Really, Draco wasn't usually that slow.

"What prophecy?" Draco almost yelled.

Oh, he didn't know. That explained some stuff. "The one that says I need to die for Voldy to die too."

There was a pause. Then slowly, Draco asked. "Wait, so what? He wants you to die?"

"Yes, no, it's complicated. I think he wants me to chose to sacrifice myself for the benefit of others. I think he assumes I can't die unless it's fighting Him, but if it's not true, then my death was for a good cause... I really don't know."

Draco made a pinched face as he thought. "So he wanted you to be abused? Eleven years is a long time for a wizard not to check up on a baby, especially in peace time."

Marry shrugged, Draco was still focused on the fact that the Dursleys dared to mistreat her...him...them? Whatever. "He wanted me to be humble and self-sacrificing. I mean. Yes, probably."

"WHAT. No. Fuck. I can see it. And all the times at school too. He really just wanted you dead."

Marry shrugged again. It was an old, scabbed-over pain. "No, ideally, he wants me to kill Tommy and stay alive, but he's realistic towards my prospects to do so."

"That's still fucked up."

"Yes but... I'm still only one person, that's nothing to the full-on massacre Voldemort has planned up."

"And you think Snape can force his hand?"

Marry smiled. "I know he can, he only has to speak up about his love for my mother, and how he loves me too, and Dumbledore will melt. No, the hard part will be convincing Snape to do it."

Draco looked dubious, but he settled himself down on his armchair better, throwing his legs over the left armrest. "How about a bet. If Professor Snape accepts, you owe me a Nimbus 2000, if he manages to convince Dumbledore, I owe you one back?"

Marry thought back over the piles of gold in her parents vault that her first life had barely dented, and nodded.

"Okay, so what do you know about your parents and Snape?"


	21. One Step

"And what keeps you from asking Professor McGonagall about the rat yourselves?" Snape asked, nose pinched and mouth askew. Marry had no problem now, remembering why she used to hate him.

"Because we look like children and she won't take us seriously?" Draco asked hopefully, eyes open very large and little pout in place at his lips.

"But I know you aren't, so put away the face." Snape snapped. (Ha!)

Draco kept his big eyed look. Marry tried to imitate him as instructed. The way Snape recoiled could be an indicator of either great success or great failure.

"I'll come along with you to help your credibility." He declared grandly before sweeping his way out of the corridor Draco and Marry had cornered him in, his black robes billowing dramatically behind him.

What a drama queen.

Marry liked Snape more with each discovery of his real personality.

Marry smiled ironically at Draco then hurried after Snape, who, with his long legs and tendency to be dramatic, was not that easy to follow.

The planning for asking Snape to become Marry's uncle (as in, a brother to her mother) had bled out into a very long discussion about their parents, themselves, their first lives and the feeling they shared that they were not going to be getting their children back, ever.

Marry had told Draco all about the prophecy, and it's connection to the death of Sirius. Draco had told her of his wife and son who was the same age as Albus.

In the end, they had passed what was left of the holidays alternatively telling each other their lives, barely disturbed by their need to sleep and eat. It had been cathartic and liberating. Just as Marry had suspected it would. But also even more painful than she envisioned.

They were both looking like they had just cried (they had) which Draco had deemed a great setup for the first step in his plan to win over Snape: convince him that Marry needed him, and trusted him more than she did anyone else. (She did... Except for Mom...)

Still, things were changing, Marry had particularly noticed her missing invisibility cape. As someone who once was a parent, she knew you really shouldn't be giving that kind of artifact to an eleven years old. But the fact stood that Dumbledore had given it back to Harry for his first christmas, but not to Marry.

Was it that he thought the cape was the kind of thing a reckless Gryffindor would need, but not a Hufflepuff? Or was it that he was then counting on the fact that he was 'Harry Potter' to protect Harry from the consequences of getting caught sneaking around but didn't think Marry Evans would get away with it?


	22. Asking the Map

Convincing Professor McGonagall to test if Ron's rat is an animagus when he came back was indeed difficult. Marry ended up having to use her trump card.

"I have a proof, but you can't take it. It was my father's." She saw Snape stiffening behind her at the mention of James Potter, but ignored it in favor of pulling out the Marauder’s map and spreading it on Professor McGonagall's desk.

She pulled her wand to, and tapped it to the parchment. "Hi Prongs, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot; I need you to tell me something."

There was a long moment of nothing happening, and Marry was starting to wonder how she would roll this if the map refused to speak.

-Moony would like to know why miss Evans wants him to talk in front of professors.  
-Wormtail said to Moony that he really should not have spoken.  
-Padfoot is incensed that Miss Evans wants to ask anything in front of Snivellus.

Oh, that was going to go downhill fast... "I am Marry Evans, born Harry Potter, and I need your help so I won't be killed."

-Prongs wants to know why Marry changed her last name.

Marry almost cried right here and then. "It has become too famous after the murder of my parents and my survival to Voldemort."

There was a long stillness, the ink faded back, then.  
-Prongs doesn't know what to say.  
-Moony is sorry for Prongs and Marry.  
-Padfoot want's to know if he is now Marry's godfather.

Marry almost laughed."Yes, you're my dogfather, but I was not raised by you, Dumbledore wanted me to stay with Lily's family. They were horrible.

-Wormtail is sorry to hear that.

Marry felt an odd bubble of disgust and pity. Was the Wormtail impressed in this map already the type of person who would betray her parents?

-Padfoot is angry that his older self didn't fight harder to have Marry's custody.

She heard a gasp behind her, reminding her that she was doing this for a reason. "Sorry to cut this short, but I'm going to say something, and you just have to answer yes if I'm right.

-Moony is still not convinced we should promise anything of the sort in front of professors.-  
-Padfoot doesn't want to answer while Snivellus is in the room.  
-Wormtail agrees.  
-Prongs wants the greasy git to leave before he speaks to his daughter.

She... should have anticipated that. In the other hand, this was the best chance to do this... "Marry doesn't want to have a father or a godfather who are rude bullies and will stop speaking to you if you keep being rude to Professor Snape."

Draco nodded at her in agreement, the professors raised their eyebrows almost in concert, and the parchment stayed blank for almost a whole minute.

-Prongs thinks he wants to speak to his daughter enough to stop insulting Severus Snape.  
-Wormtail is not so sure.  
-Moony asks what Marry's questions are.

Marry took a deep breath. "Okay, so all four of you are imprints of your real selves on an object, like a magical portrait, but on parchment."

-Moony says yes.

"And you know who you were when this map was made."

-Padfoot says yes but would want to know what the real questions are.

Marry smiled a bit. "You are James Potter, Sirius Black,Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew."

-Wormtail is Wormtail, these are our names just like Marry is Marry and not Harry.  
-Padfoot informs his goddaughter that the marauders don't call themselves by birth names.  
-Moony tells Marry that the Marauders had another name that were the one she listed nonetheless.

She glanced at Professor McGonagall, who was frowning at the parchment thoughtfully.

"And the four of you could change into animals? Moony in a wolf, Prongs in a stag, Padfoot in a dog, and Wormtail in a rat?"

the parchment stayed blank for a long time. Enough to hear Snape recoil, then.

-Prong says yes.

Professor McGonagall insisted to do a few spells to check if the map could be harmful to it's owner before letting Marry pocket it. Marry accepted, thinking that was the kind of suspicion that would have kept Ginny from being possessed by Voldemort.

Professor McGonagall accepted to cast the spell to reveal if Scabbers was an animagus as soon as the students come back from vaccation, and bid everyone to leave her office because she had essays to grade.


	23. Fateful Decisions

Later, Marry would tell himself that she should have known. She should have been more cautious, she should... she should have...

But for the time, she greeted her friends as they came back from vacation.

She lurked by Ron, along with Hermione, when Professor McGonagall asked that they spoke in private, and witnessed Peter scrambling out of Ron's hands as the professor pointed her wand at the rat.

What happened next went straight to his now dwindling stack of Patronus worthy memories, as professor McGonagall morphed into her cat form just as the rat ran for a corner and actually pounced on him.

Just as McGonagall's cat form had her paw swiping for the rat's back legs, he transformed back in an human out of despair, still scrambling around and trying to escape his natural predator.

McGonagall transformed back too, straight and proud and wand in her hand, and cast an incarcerus at the discovered traitor.

There were a few more spells cast later, to ensure that Peter could not slip his bounds by transforming again, and professor McGonagall shooed the three of them away while she levitated the former rat to Dumbledore's office.

Unfortunately, she also thanked Marry for giving her a warning, which had Ron and Hermione rounding on her almost immediately.

At the time, telling his two best friends about her first life seemed like the hugest thing ever, and so she took them both down to the Hufflepuff's common room, greeting Cedric on the way, to fetch Draco and go hide out in the room of requirement long enough to tell her sorry tale.


	24. Besties For Two Lives

Now that she was standing in front of them in a private place, and with Draco looking meaningfully at her, she felt half frozen.

She used her easiest starter, and unspelled her bangs from her brow, before lifting the hair up.

Both of her best friends gasped as the scar was revealed.

"You have the same scar as Harry Potter," Ron exclaimed, just as Hermione cried "You're Harry Potter."

Marry looked on as her friends started speaking to each other about who was right. "But Harry Potter is a boy." "how likely do you think it is for two different people to have the same scar?"

Marry coughed to get their attention on her rather than whether being a girl or a boy changed things that much at eleven years old. "I was born Harry Potter, yes. I've since decided to change that for Marry Evans."

"So He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named really tried to kill you?" Ron asked.

Well, that was depressing. "Yes, but I was a baby then. He'll try again, though."

"But he's dead." Hermione pointed out.

"No he's not." Marry took a deep breath. It was not really how she thought she would reveal her past, but this worked too. "He did a very dark ritual to split his soul and store it out of his body, so he can't really be killed yet."

Draco raised his eyebrows at her, but Ron and Hermione stayed silent for ten second before exploding with question. Answering all of them would take a long time. But then she heard the "How do you even know that?" From Hermione and decided to cut the chase.

"I know," She yelled over then, making them stop. She went on more quietly. "Because I'm from the future."

After another lull, Hermione declared it impossible because she read all about time travel and how it tended to create a looping timeline, rather than changing things.

It was Draco who answered. "In most cases, yes, time self-rectifies, but the potion Harry and I took was more powerful than that and enabled us to break the loop. We're in an alternate timeline to our first one."

Hermione frowned thoughtfully, while Ron gaped.

"But that's absolutely forbidden!" Hermione finally stumbled out.

"Yes it is, but we were in the middle of a war, no one cared about laws all that much." Marry managed to get out.

"Wait." Ron cried. "You both are from the future? Then why aren't we?"

Oh great.

"Were we not friends?" Hermione added.

"You were dead." Draco said for Marry, cutting what could have been a long complaint short. "I suspect that's the main reason Harry even accepted to try the time returning potion."

"And my kids." Marry whispered past her closed off throat. Draco nodded, looking somber.

"But why change name?" Ron asked again, "and... be a girl?"

That was actually easier to answer than details on the war. "As far as I am concerned, Harry Potter died at twenty-seven in an horrible war. I started clean with a new name that is not famous and a new gender. Not that I ever cared much for those."

"But..." Hermione swiftly put her hand on Ron's mouth, interrupting what was sure to be a rude question.

Marry smiled at them. They were just so young... "I still have my birth body, I'll probably start taking potions to look more like a girl too in a few years, because I feel really comfortable as female than I ever did as male, but now is too soon. I have to wait until puberty to start growing a chest anyway. Not that I want a lot of it either, though. Like..." She held her hands one inch away from her flat chest. "That much would be good."

Ron silently opened and closed his mouth, then nodded. "Good for you, sis."

Hermione fairly beamed at him than turned to Marry. "I am honored you chose to tell us this much, Marry."


	25. First Confrontation

They stayed in the room of requirement for a couple of hours, hashing out what Marry knew of the future and what her goals were, and yes, that's why I knew Scabbers was in fact Peter Pettigrew, sorry I didn't tell you right away, I was afraid no one would believe me.

Marry was pretty pleased with how things were going when they all got out. And then they heard a scream.

Draco and Marry shared a look, Marry didn't remember anything particular on that day, but then again, he had not been in this part of the castle back then.

Marry looked at the two Gryffindors, then at Draco. "Away or towards?" She asked, even though her old Auror instincts were yelling at her to go rescue the kid.

Draco visibly gritted his teeth. "Towards."

Hermione and Ron nodded along, much to Marry's despair, but they needed to act fast. Another scream was already sounding.

The four of them ran down four floors and toward the charms corridors. Towards the forbidden corridor.

Marry was starting to feel chilled to the bone. No, it couldn't have... But.

Damn.

Dumbledore probably hadn't relocated the mirror of erised yet. Quirell had gotten to the stone.

He was early, but there had been no Harry Potter to distract him by always being at the wrong place.

In fact, Marry had distracted Snape instead.

Fuck.

Marry glanced at Ron and Hermione. She couldn't let them get into this kind of danger. They were only eleven.

The choice was made for her, as the last corner they had rounded showed them Quirell, head turned at 180°, facing the charm's lesson door, wand pointed towards the inside.

The face that was actually Quirell saw the four of them appear and started talking. "Weasley, Granger, Evans, Malfoy. How odd seeing you there."

The head turned, along with Quirell's body. "Ah, young mister Malfoy, uh." The back of Quirell's head that was Voldemort said. "Your father must be so disappointed in you. And Evans, of course..." He fairly spat out Marry's name. "You probably thought you were so clever, using that name, as though I wouldn't recognize you anyway."

A part of Marry was hopping there weren't too many people in the charm's classroom or she would be outed as Harry Potter and her life would be getting a lot more difficult.

The other part was hurtling herself right at Quirell, intent on using her most powerful tool against Voldemort right away.

She grabbed his wand hand with one hand, immediately feeling as though she'd decided to scoop out embers from a fire without casting the proper charms first. Her other hand went for the possessed man's face.

There was again this horrible sizzling sound and smell of burning flesh. Both her own and Voldequirell's.

Unlike her first life, though, this did not kill Quirell or send Voldemort back to spiritdom.

Voldemort stepped back, yelling, starred at Marry, then ran.

Marry, for her part, passed out.


	26. Recovery

Marry would later learn that the student in the classroom had been Cedric Diggory, here to discuss his homework.

Both he and Professor Flitwick had been subjected to crucio, seemingly only for Voldy's amusement. It explained the screams. And it meant that Marry's secret was still somewhat safe. (Considering that Voldy himself knew.)

Without a Harry Potter in constant danger, Hagrid had needed less bribing to gush about his dear Fluffy, and the distraction of Peter Pettigrew's capture had provided Quirell with the perfect opportunity to go steal the philosopher's stone, especially since the mirror had not yet been in place.

So Voldemort now had the elixir of life to sustain his possession of Quirell. He also possibly had permanent, hand-shaped burns, but that was not so sure.

Marry's hands were going to recover from her own burns under Madam Pomfrey's watchful guard, and the Ministry called all declarations of Voldemort's revival vicious lies. (So nothing that new on this front. )

It was Dumbledore who explained that all to her, along with gifting her her father's invisibility cloak, both as a get well gift, and for her protection. He also told her what she already knew about Lily's blood protection and how that was why she'd been left at the Dursleys.

She rudely informed him that there was no power of love to be found in that house for her, but she had the distinct impression Dumbledore had elected to ignore her on that.

To her surprise, Snape also came to visit her, though it was only once, and late at night. He informed her about the status of things with Voldemort, who was recovering too, and had decided that he wouldn't be doing anything against Marry right away, since he wanted to study the burns and their cause and come up with a plan to counter them. (Like the triwizard tournament) in the meantime, Snape had been tasked to get as close to her as he could.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) Marry had been on strong pain potion at the time, and she had blurted "so you can still be my uncle then?" At him. 

She then explained all about how she was protected by the power of her mother's love and so she should go amongst family according to Dumbledore. But since Snape had loved Lily, they could do a blood adoption ritual and she would be protected as long as she lived with him.

Snape got back out of the hospital wing looking extremely bewildered.

Sirius' actual trial was scheduled post-haste in January. Professor McGonagall had explained to Marry that since Sirius was Marry's godfather she could be present for the trial.

Marry had answered that she preferred to keep her anonymity, even though she was sad that she wouldn't be there to see Sirius freed.

Madam Pomfrey decided that Marry's presence was the perfect opportunity to monitor her sleeping troubles (still here, though the occlumency lessons helped a bit) and explain everything about how to change her physical sex, and when it would be possible.

Marry already had an inkling, thanks to the lovely witch who sold her her glamoured jewelry and appearances potions, but she listened carefully to Pomfrey and asked the questions she had.

Actual physical changes would have to wait, but there were potions to keep her voice from changing and her beard from growing that she could come and drink every week at the hospital wing, after she turned fourteen. The potions to make sure she got the right bodytype were a bit later, and would require a visit to an accredited healer to make sure she wouldn't be harmed by them.

Hermione, Ron and Draco visited frequently for the week that she was to stay on observation for her burnt hands, and so did Michael the Basilisk, who liked to keep watch from the piping in the wall at night.


	27. Return To Classes

Just like in her old fifth year, nothing happened right away.

She, as well as those she trusted knew the truth, and so did the ones that were her true enemies.

It otherwise stayed just a rumor in the gossip mill, that You-Know-Who had revived in the school in the back of Quirell's head, stolen what had been in the third floor corridor, then used crucio on Professor Flitwick and Cedric Diggory. The rumor also claimed that Harry Potter had ran in to save the two and vanquished Voldemort with his bare hands.

Marry suspected the twins for this one, as they, too, had come to visit her.

Draco assured her that it was a good thing she'd blurted out her plans to adopt Snape as her family, since he now knew what she wanted and could start making up his mind.

Hermione got her a book on all the known ways to escape unforgivables from the library. There was something interesting on deflecting Aveda Kadavra thanks to a levitated shield metal that looked very promising. Maybe Marry could apply it with some training. Even though she knew she was going to need to take one herself to get rid of the horcrux in her scar. Maybe she could use her throwing knives as tiny deflectors to protect those she loved?

Draco brought her her homework and plotted the way to retrieve the diary from his father, and free Dobby with Marry in hushed voices.

Snape came in to inform her that the potion to restore Micheal's eyelids was ready on the last day of her infirmary stay. They agreed to go and administer it in the Chamber of Secrets on the next day after school.

She also tried to discern a method to retrieve Helga Hufflepuff's cup from the Lestrange vault that would work better than last time. For now her best plan was to kill Bellatrix and hope her vault went in Narcissia's care where Draco could just ask for it. She was still searching for something better.

On the first day she got out of the hospital wing, Cedric Diggory came to her and hushedly thanked her for saving him, then assured her he would be telling no one of her secret.

That lifted a weight from Marry's shoulder, while simultaneously making her feel a bit nauseous. The moment where she would be exposed as Harry Potter was approaching, she could feel it.

Her old name was on all the lips. Grandiose tales of Harry Potter's second defeat of Voldemort flying erverywhere, each more ridiculous than the last.

Marry was just glad that wearing skirts made her not be the first suspect of being Harry, otherwise, the timing of her trip to the hospital wing would definitely have outed her. Already she could see some sixth and seventh year students glancing at her speculatively.

Michael was healed with minimal fuss, and profusely sthanked everyone involved in making his potion profusely before slithering away to disscusss sssomething with the unicorns in the forbidden forest. Marry had no idea how this conversation could go, but she was glad Michael was making new friends.

to her surprise, it only took two weeks for Snape to come back to her and let her know that he would accept her offer and they would be doing the adoption paperwork on Easter break, then the blood ritual to placate Dumbledore at the start of the summer vacation.

She suspected he had a good reason to be in such a hurry, but she contented herself with being happy, and writting the necessary owls to get Draco his Nimbus 2000.


	28. Adoption Papers

Marry watched in amusement as Snape put down the small bag of money he'd asked her on the ministry worker's desk. In her time as Auror, such blatant bribery would never have worked, but for once she was glad of the lack of moral backbone in Wizarding Britain's government.

The Ministry worker accepted to do an unbreakable vow not to tell anyone, or let anyone know in any way he could think of about what Marry and Snape were about to ask him.

He didn't swear to do what they asked, but that was alright, that's what the second bag of gold was for.

Helbore Gaelec, as he'd introduced himself during his vow, made a very amusing face when Marry filled the adoption paper with Marry Iris Evans born Harry James Potter, but he'd vowed not to out her, so she just enjoyed his surprise and fumbling.

Helbore accepted the second bag of gold and promised he would file the act himself.

It had taken seven hours in all to get legally adopted as Severus' niece. Half of that had been waiting and tracking the right desk flunky. Marry was not impressed but also thought it funny that all these months of wait had brought her to something so simple.

"Thank you, uncle Severus." She smiled as they stepped out of the adoption office.

Severus flushed. "You are welcome. I think Lily would have wanted me to do this."

Marry nodded. "Yes, she would have wanted me to be under your care in a situation such as this.

The 'situation' was indeed complicated. Sirius was out, but since there were no trace of where Harry Potter had vanished to, he still hadn't seen Marry at all. But in any case, Sirius was still being checked over for dementor linked brain damage, and was still mentaly and legally unfit to be the sole guardian of a teen.

Marry hopped with time Sirius may become her second guardian still, all in a great big house with all the Weasley living with them, but that was a dream. Still, she hopped that Severus and Sirius could come to a truce for her sake, even though she was not the fragile child she looked to be.

Peter Pettigrew was exactly where he should be, replacing Sirius in his old cell, with all the needed protection to keep in animagi.

She knew in the long term, she would have to advocate against using Azkaban as a prison, as it was part of the problem that led to the Civil War, but for now she was satisfied.

"Uncle Sev" even bought her an ice-cream at Fortescue's before taking her back to Hogwarts, where Dumbledore gave her a long considering glance, then nodded at Severus.

She was going to inform Draco that he now owed her a Nimbus 2000.


	29. Good Blood Bad Blood

Remus Lupin was the one Dumbledore called to replace the missing professor Quirell in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Marry couldn't have been happier with it.

She still hadn't told him she was James Potter daughter yet, but she was already planning to do so sometime before the summer vacations.

The studying got more brutal as the year dragged forth and every single teacher started speaking about their exams that were coming up. Marry sometimes wondered if they dreamed of exams at night and were simply taking it out on the students.

She was mostly fine, because even though her body was eleven, she was still a grown Auror on the inside. On the other hand, she had forgotten enough in the years since her last first year to realistically forget some stuff and have an acceptably average score.

She kept up the various social visit she committed herself to, to Micheal, Hagrid, the Weasleys, the house elves, and now her uncle Severus too, as well as plotting how to kill Voldemort with her four friends. All in all, she was less bored than before Christmas.

She was also noticeably more worried about Voldy getting up to his old tricks, but that had still not happened yet. She was sure he was plotting something though.

 

What really interested Marry was the ripple of resentment she was very attuned to. Once again, it was a result of her actions, but she could not hear small snitches of conversation, see it in the Prophet...

Sirius Black was looking for Harry Potter. Sirius Black, a pureblood, had been betrayed by Peter Pettigrew, a pureblood, after he betrayed his other pureblood friend, James Potter and his barely mentioned muggleborn wife. And now he was looking for Potter (still a pureblood name, even though the boy was a half blood) and that, of course, was newsworthy. Because it was pureblood matters.

Marry could now see ho getting married to Ginny (a pureblood) while Hermione married Ron (a pureblood) still fed from that stream. You spoke of things when they happened to pureblood, but muggleborns were barely mentioned at all. And muggle just weren't.

"Do they even know the queen's name?" "I don't think so." She even heard once muttered resentfully between two older students at breakfast.

No one paid attention to the muggleborns, and so the resentment was not noted. They were expected to blend in, no place was made for them, they just had to pass, to act as witchy as a pureblood, or they were gently mocked until they got in the rank.

Hell, even Marry could feel it. No one remembered her mom as anything other than Lily Potter. Marry Evans, which was an horribly obvious name, didn't get suspected, because no one even knew her mother's name before she got married.

The chasm was already here gaping and ready to boil, and it was sixteen years before the Civil War even started.


	30. Blood Ritual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for self mutilation, be safe, people

The exams passed peacefully Marry looked forward to a perfectly mediocre score.

Slytherin won the House Cup, which put Severus in a good mood and Ron and Hermione in a bad one. The Hufflepuff were generally uninterested in it. There was no last minute point addition, but the slytherins went out of their way to be jerks about it. Pansy notably gloated very loudly to Crabbe and Goyle about the superior House with superior breeding.

Marry cringed as she knew where this one went. There was a shiver of grumbling, but no muggleborn came out to confront her, they were used to it. Neither did any Professor, maybe they too were used to it.

On the vacation front, Severus had promised Dumbledore that he and Marry would be performing the blood adoption ritual on the school grounds just after the rest of the students vacated the premise, and before they went to Snape's house, which seemed enough to not force Marry back on the Hogwarts Express.

She was a little nervous for the ritual, she had, of course researched it along with Severus, and Hermione, she knew what to do, and what to say, but still she kept a bit of fear that it wouldn't work. That her mom was still angry at Severus over the 'mudblood' slip and voided the ritual, or something like that.

She went to bed on the day she had waved goodbye to her friend not even able to close her eyes, and compulsively checked her book every five minutes for a detail or another.

Blood adoption were an archaic and mostly forgotten system. It was used to cover up matrimonial mishaps in a society that cared a bit too much about bloodlines, mostly.

Most magical adoptions were based on love. She and Severus had settled on one that did both.

 

Marry handed Severus the mortar of freshly hand-ground unicorn horn.

Severus took it with both hands and put it down ceremonially by the candle in the middle of the pentacle and then made sure they were well positioned on either side of the candle.

"We invoke the power of love." Severus said, trying his best to keep form wincing.

Marry also tried her best to keep from smiling. "We invoke the power of love."

Snape took a pinch of unicorn horn, and sprinkled it on the candle's flame, Marry imitated him. The flame turned blue

"We invoke the power of blood." Severus said much less tensely.

"We invoke the power of blood." It was Marry that was tensing, now. She and Severus had discussed this, it was going to be brutal. She fingered the potion in her pocket to remind herself that it was there.

She gave Severus her arm and pricked the tip of her finger with a needle, letting the blood drop on the flame. 

She did the same to Severus, feeling her shoulders stiffen. The flame turned purple.

"We invoke the power of flesh." Severus said, bringing one of the two knives to his inner left forearm.

"We invoke the power of flesh." Marry repeated, and quickly cut a small slice off her forearm. It fell and flashed when it got consumed by the candle's flame at once.

She then looked up to Severus, just in time to see him peel all the skin of his inner forearm, almost to the bone, to drop it in too.

She swallowed her fear and disgust, and watched the whole flap go up in flames. The candle's flame turned brilliantly white.

"We wish to be family." Severus calmly drawled.

Marry forced herself not to just blurt the ritual words. "We wish to be family."

The candle flashed out blindingly. Once Marry's eyes recovered, the candle was gone, as well as the pentacle on the floor, their knives, the needles, and the mortar.

Marry didn't pay it attention, as she pulled out the potion from her pocket, uncorked it, and gave it to Severus.

Severus drank at once, watched his skin regrow, and gave Marry his own restorative potion.

The feeling of the ritual was still there, there were still words to be said.

"I accept you as my Mother's brother."

"I accept you as my sister's Daughter."

She felt the cold, ghostlike feeling pass through her. Lily, not given form, but there for the ritual nonetheless. Severus shivered too, reassuring Marry.

"You are mine. My family for me to protect." Severus declared.

These words were normally different for the child and adult in the ritual, but the fact that she was older in truth than Severus permitted her to deviate the rules. "You are mine. My family for me to protect."

"And all shall know it." They added together.

There was a second flash of blinding light, in blueish, this time, and coming from seemingly nowhere.

The feeling of ritual dissipated. "It's done." She said. "Did it work?"

As an answer, Severus showed her his unblemished arm. "Yes." The ritual, being blood magic and about love, had succeeded at what everyone thought impossible. It had removed the Dark Mark from Severus. He was not forced to pretend to be loyal to Voldy anymore, he was free.

Marry noticed it first. Severus still too fascinated by the skin of his forearm to pay attention to the new truth in his chest that Marry felt.

She smirked as she opened her mouth. "Well met, Severus Evans, my Mother's Brother."

Severus jumped, then goggled at her for ten seconds before he could speak. "Indeed." He closed his eyes. "What a nice family name to have, did I ever speak to you about your grandparents?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't try this at home, they both have magic and a potion ready at hand, and we don't.


	31. First Summer

Spending the summer with Severus was a very new experience.

He did have a house, even though it was old and crumbling. Severus readily admitted that he disliked the house and never really spent time there. Having a house was legally important in the adoption papers, though, and in Dumbledore's mind, so Marry suggested that they repair the house during the break.

Working on a non magical house in a muggle neighborhood with a wizard was extremely fun, and demanded a subtlety and cunning that they both appreciated.

They did most of the outside work the muggle way, and kept the wand waving for inside. Marry was happy to have a work with visible result to do. She knew she was much safer at Severus' side that pretty much anywhere else, and Severus himself was extremely interesting to watch.

Over the summer, it really was like a pall was lifted from his shoulders. His cheeks started to fill out, he started to smile at Marry's sometimes odd antics, he even started adding a tiny touch of color in his clothing. His hair stayed the same though. Marry came to the conclusion that they were just very lank and dark, making them look greasy all the time even if Severus washed himself regularly.

By their second month of vacation, only the finishing touches were left to do. Marry hated gardening (a gift from the Dursleys) so they shared the last few things to do to turn Severus' old house into a home separately, Marry was on putting on the paints, and Sev tended what he had decided would be a muggle herb garden.

There were a couple of grass snakes around, and Marry went out of her way to find them and tell them not to bite her uncle.

Marry and Severus made extra-sure that all their owls were only coming and going at night, so as not to tip off their neighbors, but Marry kept in touch with everyone that way.

They got five different papers every morning that they examined for any sign of Voldemort's presence. The fact that they found nothing was not as comforting as it should be.

Draco also kept her appraised of his search for the diary and quest to free Dobby. It seemed to be going alright.


	32. Furniture Shopping

Marry had planned her school supplies trip in advance with the Weasleys, Hermione and Draco, As well as Cedric Diggory with whom she'd started befriending after the crucio and burned hands incident.

She had decided to make one step to start reducing the resentment between pureblood and Muggleborns. She called it the great lined paper notebook revolution, and it involved all the purebloods she was friends with coming back to school with a few useful muggle school supplies and being very proud of having them.

Lucius, of course, was not aware, but Draco had written to her that he'd told the whole truth to his mother and she was very supportive of the notebook plan.

Draco was, as a result, doing his school supplies shopping with his mother, not his father. They all had decided it was wiser to start out by going to the muggle shop, and met up a king's cross, by apparition or by car. They would shop while closely following Mr and Mrs Granger's lead, then they would head to the Leaky Cauldron to top up their school list.

Marry kept half an eye on the Weasleys to ensure they weren't acting too weird in the supermarket, and the other on the Diggorys and Narcissia, who seemed genuinely interested in all there was to see.

And idea sparked in her head and she shifted closer to Narcissia, who acknowledged her with a nod. "You know that Sirius has a house, right?" She asked seemingly out of the blue.

Narcisssia wrinkled her nose. "You mean that cesspit he inherited?"

Marry grinned. "Some call it the great and ancient House of Black. But Andromeda has a house too, you know. I'm not sure we can save your husband from his own stupidity, but you could save Draco from having to see his mother die twice."

She shrugged and went on her way, leaving Narcissia to think upon her words, and started perusing the notebooks. Marry was really rich, so she planned to buy a hecking lot of them, and then start selling them for a low price at Hogwarts to spread up her great lined paper revolution.

By previous agreement, Mr and Mrs Granger paid for the whole group's muggle supplies with their credit card, in exchange of which Marry would give them Galleons to spare them the need to exchange currency at Gringots before even starting their Diagon Alley run.

The second half of of the trip saw them meeting Gilderoy Lockhart, who was apparently going to be their Defense teacher once more, Marry was disgusted at the idea, but she also wasn't Headmaster of Hogwarts (yet?) so it wasn't her decision to make.

She grudgingly bought the books, but didn't have them autographed.

They saw a male snowy owl at the emporium that made Ron's head turn and Marry think longingly of little owl chicks, so she bought it and gifted the owl to Ron, hopping that Hedwig would like him too and decide she wanted babies.

Hermione used the chance to buy Crookshanks, that Marry was happy to see again.

They each went their way again at five in the afternoon, but not before Draco had a chance to tell Marry that he'd found the diary and was going to bring it back to Hogwarts to be Basilisked.


	33. Twelfth Birthday

The house was ready to have visitors for Marry's birthday, which Severus had grimly prepared, looking pinched all through his writing of invitation and shopping for feasting ware.

Marry wasn't sure if it was because he was forced to plan such an event, or because Marry had informed him the Dursleys had only ever given him trash and chores for her birthdays so far.

It was her first real birthday in that timeline, so she set herself to enjoying it at best she could, especially since she was going to be inviting people she liked in the house she had had a hand in renovating.

Also, gifts, she looked forward to them. Draco still owed her a Nimbus 2000, Hermione was sure to give her a book, and Marry was curious what it would be about this time.

She wondered whether she should try for the Hufflepuff Quiddich team... It made her a bit nervous because she and Draco had been seekers, since they both were in the some House, only one of them would get to be seeker now, Marry had never been that good at being a chaser, and they were both too young in body to make adequate beaters. She would inquire subtly later.

Thinking of that, she was of a mind that she may well gift every Weasley child a Nimbus 2000 for Christmas, it would make a small dent on her vault's content, but by then it wouldn't be the most expensive broom on the market, and would go on for at least fifteen years before feeling their age catch up to them. It would be a good, practical gift that would remind her to them in case she really ended up dying while going up against Voldemort this time around.

 

The birthday itself was a warm and boisterous affair. And just what the house needed to start feeling like a home.

Of course, not everyone was there, Marry had ended up procrastinating on telling Remus about her birth name, and so neither him nor Sirius knew how to get to her for her birthday. She felt a bit guilty about that and resolved to at least send them a letter from Harry Potter once she reached Hogwarts.

For her gifts, Hermione had gotten her 'Witch's guide to beauty potions' Which was an excellent and thoughtful idea, if only to have an idea what to whine to uncle Sev that she needed him to brew to keep her cover, since Marry would need more of these as the years passed.

Ron had taken her hint that handmade was what made things irreplaceable and had made her a set of false snitch adorned hair-clips, charmed to stay exactly where it was on the head "in case she wanted to grow her bangs more". They immediately became Marry's favorite hairthings. Her bangs had grown enough to get in her eyes, so she also immediately put one on, taking care not to flash her scar while doing it.

Hagrid sent her the photo album, a bit delayed to the first time, but probably because he knew Severus would not be interfering with her getting gifts for her birthday, like the Dursleys had.

The twins had done like like Ron, and made her gifts, there were a collection of elastic bands that changed colors with her mood, two belts that were charmed to explode in a big white cloud if it was pulled on enough to break them, so she could always escape, they explained for Mom's benefit that it worked as well on Filch as with real danger. And, folded and unassuming in the bottom of the box, the Marauder map. The twins had definitely stolen the show for her birthday.

Cedric had gotten her a pair of flying goggles that would magically adapt to her face, and to the sight correction she needed. She might have spoken to him about Quiddich enough for him to know she had an interest in it. Or he might have seen how she flew in the beginner's lesson last year and be planning to kidnap her for the Hufflepuff team...

Draco got her the promised broom, as well as dragonhide seeker's gloves, so she knew he wouldn't begrudge her the place in the team. "I really prefer to be a chaser." he whispered to her when she opened her mouth to ask.

Percy got her a tie (she actually liked it, too), mom gave her a magic-sewn beautiful sundress, that Marry bowed out to go put on, Arthur gave her a muggle pencil case, sized big enough for her quills, and Ginny gave her her own old childhood copy of 'Tales of Beedle the Bard' because she knew Marry hadn't read it before and most wizaring children already knew it. Marry interrupted the explanation with a hug. Ginny was great, and had unknowingly reminded Marry that she already had two of the three Hallows.


	34. Trip to Hogwarts

Dobby did pop by the day before Marry was to take the train, but it was to "thank Marry Evans, who helped good young master Draco to trick Bad master into freeing Dobby." So it was alright, and Marry managed to take her train in a perfectly normal fashion. Even if she could have just gone by side-along with Severus.

She had to get in the habit of calling him Professor Evans instead of Severus or worse, uncle Sev (that one always worked when she wanted something, even though Severus knew she was not a child in truth).

But before that, she had a few hours in the Hogwarts Express to look forward to. She happily impersonated the twelve years old she was supposed to be by seeking out her school friend and settling in to gossip and plot with them for all the duration of the trip. She took great delight in retelling all the cases in which Lockhart had been a fool. Draco helped, and it was a good thing they had a compartment to themselves, because they might have been a tiny little bit conspicuous in their laughter.

In fact, she was pretty sure Gred and Forge had heard some of what they were telling and were already putting pieces together, they had a particular look about them when they looked at her before climbing in a carriage with Lee Jordan and Angelina Johnson. She would have to tell them the truth about how she was from the future soon.

Voldemort was still a worry in the back of her head, but she was already much further along on getting rid of him than last time, even though things had changed in between. She was not going to underestimate her power to change things again, but for now her not being discovered as Harry Potter was probably helping in Voldy's decision to bide his time, so she would keep it up as long as she could, and treat the horcruxes hunt as the end of term essay she knows is due but is not working on all the time.

She knew where most of them were anyway, and had the drafts of a plan to work on. Maybe. She was thinking that she had an owl and could exchange letters with people under Harry Potter's name if she so chose. Her plan could stand to be changed.

And Belatrix had a niece who was a metamorphmagus and probably okay with helping Marry out in her quest to kill Voldemort.

Marry just had to think of a good way to... "Draco" She exclaimed as they took seat in the thestral drawn carriage.

"What is it?"

"Tonks is your cousin."

Draco blinked at her. "Nimphadora Tonks? Yes. I already knew that. Purebloods are very good at remembering family trees, even the once who were disinherited."

"It means you can ask to meet her and she'll think it's normal for you to want to."

"Well, she is disinherited, so..."

"But she was in Hufflepuff too, you have probable cause."

Ron and Hermione watched them speak silently, Marry couldn't care right then, they just had a breakthrough on the plan for the cup.

"Yes?"

"And so you can ask to meet her, and we can explain stuff to her directly, so she'll help us with the cup. I can ask Severus for veritaserum so she'll know we're not lying, or..."

"Wait, What does this Tonks have to do with the cup?" Hermione finally asked.

"She's the owner's niece, and she can change her appearance at will."

"You want me to waylay my cousin in order to ask her to impersonate my aunt?" Draco asked, looking admiring more than anything else. "It might work..."

"Or we just ask Andromeda, she already looks like her sister, and the blood relation is closer..."

"It might trick Goblin magic more easily if the subterfuge is based in muggle technology rather than magic..." Draco kept going.

"Makeup, yes, and colored lenses, her husband can help her buy it..." Marry said.

"I'll write to my dear Hufflepuff cousin later tonight." Draco concluded.

Ron and Hermione starred at them. Maybe they needed to explain things a bit better to the ones who had not been there the first time around. Marry would count it as training for the Tonkss


	35. Third

Marry was too busy with whispered plotting with Draco to remember much of the welcoming feast. She had made a point to boisterously clap for everyone, no matter to which house they went, but after that, she had been completely absorbed into discussing how to convince one of Draco's estranged family members to break into Gringotts to even tell if she'd eaten at all.

Between that and the warm feeling of Hogwarts' magic welcoming her back, she didn't have much more clue of what went on during her second year's first evening than she'd had the first time around, but she was sure it was inane, and possibly, thanks to Lockhart, ridiculous.

What she did remember, though, was Draco's face when she told him of her fledgling plan to get the locket by making his mother move in with Sirius in Grimmauld place and her coaxing Kreacher to bring the locket to Micheal to destroy it, but she still had no clue how she could save his father.

"Don't bother with him." Was all he said, and Marry remembered how, in her first run through, she had heard Lucius publicly disparage his son's grades. At the time, she had been positively gleeful, but now that she'd had children, all she could feel was disgust and pity.

Maybe Draco had decided Lucius deserved what he had coming. She could not fault him. He had once thought having a father at all was the greatest gift one could have, but ten years as an auror had convinced her that sometimes things were not that easy or rosy. Sometimes kids were better off without their birth parents. Even if Marry thought it would not have been her case.

Anyway, she had Severus and Molly now. Maybe Sirius too, whenever she managed to reunite with him.

As soon as the Feast ended and the students dismissed, Marry raced Draco to his room. She won but still had to wait for him in the Hufflepuff's common room, for him to go retrieve his lead box. She covered them both with her invisibility cape to avoid getting spotted by the prefects, and proceeded to the fifth floor bathroom, where Severus, Ron and Hermione waited for them after having each sneaked out of the place they were supposed to be in favor of watching Micheal destroy the Horcrux.

Severus was still sour over inviting a couple of genuine second year students, but he admitted that as Marry's friend, and a big part of how Marry triumphed the last time, they had a right to know what to expect.

Marry hurriedly asked the sink to please give her sstairss (she was catching parseltongue accent, she blamed Micheal) and they all proceeded down.

Since the diary didn't have anyone to drain magic from, the shade didn't appear when Draco opened his lead box, but still the Horcrux had power.

As soon as she saw it, Marry was extremely tempted to write on the blank page. She saw everyone's hands stray toward their pockets, as if looking for a quill, and promptly ripped the diary from Draco's grasping hands to chuck it at Micheal. The Basilisk obligingly opened his mouth wide and closed his jaw, fangs piercing the offending object.

Marry heard a screech as the soul shard in the book died.

Micheal promptly spluttered and spat the notebook out, hissing in disgust at the black blood he'd gotten in his mouth from the Horcrux's death.

Marry apologized, using her sincere feeling to avoid looking at her friends and family who had fallen for the trap so they could compose themselves.


	36. Letter

The trip back to their common room was uneventful, Ron and Hermione's because they had Professor Evens to escort them back, and Marry and Draco, because they had their own rooms and no one had even noticed that they were missing, they simply sneaked their way across the common room and removed the invisibility cape while trying to look like they were exiting their rooms, and it was good enough.

Draco bid her goodbye to go write his letter to his relatives, and Marry decided that she could as well start drafting 'Harry Potter's' letter to Sirius.

It took her a week of failures to come up with something she thought would be good enough to send to Sirius. Though the fact that she had lessons all day didn't help on that front. She then bugged Draco to teach her how to get her letter to not have her handwriting. He gave her a useful spell and one of his own flat tipped quills, and then coached her on how to correctly dictate to a writing spell so it would not split the words the wrong way.

She went back to her room and had three failures before she had something she could send.

 

"Dear Sirius. (or Padfoot.) My godfather

I hope that you are recovering from the Dementor's exposure well.

I know that you are looking for me. I am grateful that you do think highly enough of me to do so, but I must ask you to stop, I am hiding on purpose. The fame I have is too much for me. I should be learning, preparing for my life onward, not mobbed at every corridor corned because I am the Boy-Who-Lived.

My avoidance of you so far is nothing against you, but you, my dear godfather, are just much too closely watched at the moment for me to see you and have any chance at retaining my anonymity.

I was already famous before I could even talk. Not that it helped me much in my life with my mother's family.

I have the suspicion that I will be uncovered soon enough, I will then be able to spend much more time with you. For now, though, know that I am well. I am at Hogwarts, that rumor is true. I learn under another identity. I am healthy, and as happy as I can be while knowing that Voldemort is out there, with the Elixir of Youth.

Though we can't meet, I would still love to have some sort of relationship with you. You can write back, this owl should know to find me, in any other case you could wish to talk to me, send my letter through Professor Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall they will know how to forward it to me.

Your godson, Harry Potter.

Ps: I have a heirloom from the Marauders to keep me safe from harm, so it's like I have you looking over me, despite you not being there physically."

 

Marry starred at the letter thoughtfully. It was the most honest and gentle she could make it, and she hopped it would suffice. She slipped the parchment in one of her scroll tubes, and headed for the owlery.

She selected one of the most nondescript brown school owls to be her messenger, to Hedwig's ire. Marry had to explain to her why it couldn't be her bringing Harry Potter's message to her godfather because she was too rare and flashy.

Hedwig settled but was still obviously sulking. Marry sighed and turned back to the owl she was tying the message to, who was not looking much more impressed at her than Hedwig

"Please bring this to Sirius Black, and bring me the answer if he writes one, even if it's addressed to Harry Potter. Will you be able to find him?"

The owl shot her a huge eyed look of disdain, and winged out of the closest window.

Well that was obviously not the day for Marry not to make friends. Maybe she should seek out Neville to round out the count.


	37. Complications

"You know, I feel like I'm missing something." Marry sighed, frowning at the scone she was buttering.

"You probably are, in what sense?" Draco asked sedately, while reaching for the scrambled eggs.

"About the civil war." Marry whispered, making sure no one at the Hufflepuff table could hear. "The muggleborn and half-blood aren't the only ones harboring resentment."

Draco nodded. "And thus, our ploy with the paper isn't enough."

"What am I missing? You're a pureblood, you know, right?"

"I do know." Draco sighed. "It's just really difficult to rectify. The only ones who are happy about the state of things right now are the Light Pureblood and half-blood. The Dark families... are resentful too."

Marry nodded. "Yes, I remember this, by why are they really angry? I could never understand them."

"And so you would never be able to fix it."

"It's a good thing I have you, then. Please explain for me."

Draco starred up at the ceiling. He sighed. "I will tell you. But later, that's a rather long explanation. Philosophy usually takes time to explain. We need to go to class."

Marry nodded, and was interrupted from saying anything by the landing of the owl she'd sent to Sirius. "Well, that was fast." she complimented, while slipping some chicken to the owl and untying the scroll case from it's leg and slipped it into her backpack.

They had potion with the Ravenclaws as a first class, and Marry had to practice calling her uncle 'Professor Evans'.

The adoption ritual they had chosen was one that was made to overwrite people's memories of the participants. And so, only those who had paid attention to Marry's interactions with Severus would even be aware that Severus was still called 'Professor Snape' three months before.

Almost everyone thought they had always known that Marry was Professor Evans' niece.

Almost.

Hannah Abbot and Padma Patil were looking at her with a slightly confused frown, that meant they had noticed something was going on.

Marry smiled shyly at them and they both returned to the lesson at hand.

Marry swallowed against the feeling that she was going to be discovered sometime soon, and bent her concentration to cutting even slices of her hummtree root.


	38. Sirius

"Dear Harry. My godson.

 ~~I am glad you thought to write to me~~ ~~I~~ I am recovering from my imprisonment as well as I can. ~~I wish I could~~

 

I am sorry to have missed so much of your life. I understand your reason for not coming to me. I hope you will forgive me for wanting to be a part of your life anyway.

I am glad you have the map, it should be yours, and I am glad it lets me watch over you in some way.

 

I hope you will be willing to forgive my meddling, but I really wish to see you, even if it's from afar, or if I don't know it's you.

 ~~I will~~  I have volunteered to be professor in Defense Against Dark Arts next year, when the curse on the post inevitably gets rid of the peacock you have now.

 

I think about you.

 

Sirius Black."

 

Marry smiled down at the letter. Sirius... She didn't know what to make of him, he had been the best he could possibly be at his task of godfather, but still, she had barely known him before he died.

 

She wasn't that sure looking back at everything as an adult, how good of a guardian he would be. Ron's broken leg being a good exemple of the madness from Azkaban that had seemed to stay with Sirius until the end, and Marry hoped he had a really good mind-healer look at him before he even attempted to come teach at Hogwarts.

 

Marry read the letter over once more, and decided that she didn't have to just hope, she could press just a bit. She was allowed to write back and let Sirius know she (he?) would like to know Sirius was seeing a healer for the Dementor damage. She could even discuss it over with Hermione and Professor McGonagall, and actually recommend a good healer to him.

 

She was interrupted in her musings by a knock on the door. She yelled out a "Yes" and promptly hid the parchment, got up and glanced at her mirror to make sure she looked right.

 

Her eyes were still the emerald green she was used to, beneath unbroken glasses that were actually doing their job. She had put on some weight, so her knees weren't as knobbly as when she first got to the past, she had to shave her legs to look feminine, but it was a sacrifice she was willing to make, especially since she had magic to help with the shaving. Her face looked rounder than it really was thanks to the glamour, and she was still dressed in her school uniform.

 

Her hair now reached the middle of her back, and didn't look like she had just been struck by lightning anymore thanks to their own weight pulling them down. She still had an horrible time combing it every day, despite all the hair potion she used when washing them.

 

She adjusted her necklace and went to open the door, revealing Draco.

 

"Oh, am I late?" They were supposed to do a lesson on occlumency.

 

"No, but I had an answer from the Tonks I thought you would want to read it with me?"

 

 


	39. Dark

Draco stared at Hermione. Hermione kept sharpening her quills with single minded focus. Draco swallowed. Marry smiled. Ron snickered at Draco's nervousness.

"I'm ready." Hermione declared, settling her wrist on her stack of parchment. "Tell us about the philosophy behind Dark Wizardry."

Draco glared at Marry with the kind of eyes that said 'this is all your fault'. Then he breathed in and started.

"It all really comes down to the nature of life and death." Ron rolled his eyes, Hermione started to write. "One of the basics about magic is that it comes from life. That's why even muggleborns who grew up hearing about going to the moon don't really care about going into space. It's much too dead for us to use our magic up there. The more life a witch or wizard has around them, the easier it will be for them to cast. Our magical core and wands merely help us channel the power of life that is around us through ourselves, redirecting it's flow for a moment to serve another purpose than it originally was, but all magics always return to the flow eventually.

The divide in philosophy comes from whether death is a part of life, and therefore a magic like any other that we can simply direct to our will, or if it is a separate energy that a good witch or wizard should leave well alone.

The Dark Wizards maintained that if we were to kill a creature for potion parts, and that was acceptable, than why couldn't we also use the energy that comes from their death for a spell too? The Light side are of the opinion that the energy liberated by a death is meant to be returned to nature, where it will fuel new life that they can then use, but that using the magic from death amounted to stealing something from the natural cycle of magic when using magic from the living simply borrows from that same cycle."

Hermione's hand shot up as if she was in class. Draco stared at her, then nodded for her to speak. "But I read about Dark Wizard torturing people, where does it fit."

Draco grimaced. "That is the part that all Dark families do not always agree about. But since we were to be reviled for being unnatural and doing bad things, why not go a bit further? Why not use the energy that comes from suffering too. After all, we were going to kill that chicken for a spell anyway, why not draw it out a bit so we can get some more magic out of it? If we are going to be reviled for our use of death magic anyway, why not earn it?"

Ron made a disgusted sound. Draco smiled sadly. "I know that's not a very good excuse. But it's the basis of the divide between Light and Dark. The Light side maintains that the Dark side is bad because of the torturing, when it's not really what they judge on. The Dark side says the Light side is stuck up on using magic coming from death and will treat all the Dark Wizards as if they like to torture kittens, so we might as well be as bad as they like to paint us as."

"Pain creates magic?" Hermione asked, "you said it was life."

Draco shrugged. "Pain is a part of life, it frees energy up, though that energy is already focused toward protecting the one that suffers, so it's hard to use for another purpose. The ones who can use pain that is not theirs or that of an ally have to be very practiced at it, it really isn't meant for beginners."

Hermione spoke again. "Wait, so you can use your own pain as magic?"

"Yes witches and wizards can use their own pain to boost up their magic. Up to a point, it happens anyway, it's a magical instinct, just like a child's accidental magic. Otherwise, it just requires practice to be able to discern and direct it. But since you pretty much have to be tortured on a regular basis to get practiced and really be able to use your own pain reliably, it is not considered a skill worth teaching. Only the truly horrible people force others to learn it, and only the really brave or stupid learn it by their own choice."

Marry fidgeted. She had not been about to ask Draco if he could teach her, but it did seem like a good skill to have... Did that mark her as the brave or the stupid?

The conversation veered away from the philosophy of Dark and Light wizardry, and Marry didn't try to put it back on track. It really didn't feel like something that had a quick fix.


	40. Fourth

It was Hermione that got the idea. Which was absolutely no surprise to Marry, even though she was more than twice the age of this Hermione .

"But you said that the Black House Elf has the locket Horcrux. Why not send Basilisk venom to him and let him destroy it himself?"

Marry felt like the worst idiot ever. Yes, of course. And it would make the poor old elf so much good to be the one to fulfill the promise to Regulus, too.

If she played it right, she could even get Kreacher to be less horrible to Sirius all in one fell swoop.

"Hermione, you're the best." Marry said when she was done gaping. "I'll get right on to it."

Marry wrote the letter to Sirius, sent it, went down to the Chamber to discuss venom donation with Micheal, then called for Dobby.

 

Two days later, Marry was giving Dobby a transfigured stone flask full of basilisk venom. (Stone held up to the venom better than glass did, and anyway, Basilisk Venom was a controlled poison, she preferred no one could see it through the container.)

"Tell Sirius that he should absolutely not open this himself, it's for Kreacher alone, and it's dangerous."

Sirius had promised Marry that he would pass her package right on to his House Elf even though he didn't know why, but Marry thought it was better to be safe than sorry.

"And Dobby is to tell Sirius that he should say it's a gift to Kreacher to fulfill the good master Regulus' orders. Dobby be knowing."

Marry smiled. "Yes, sorry. I'm just, a bit nervous, thanks, Dobby."

"Dobby be happy to help Friend Marry Evens fight bad magic."

The lunch bell rang, and Marry hurried to her Defence class.

 

The next day, she got a letter for Harry Potter asking what was in the flask to make the Black House Elf suddenly like Sirius. Marry laughed.

Then she had to hide the letter from her fellow Hufflepuff because they wanted to know what the joke was.


	41. Marry Potter

If anyone asked Marry, her third eye needed to relax, and she was still not meant for Divination.

Or maybe she was suffering from Anxiety. One of those.

She had been so certain, from the moment she first set foot on the Hogwarts Express that she was going to get exposed as Harry Potter sometime soon, and had spent the whole year anticipating the Great Identity Blunder. And in the end it was more of a fart in a silent room joke.

"Who do you think you are? Harry Potter?" Pansy Parkinson snarled at her in the middle of the shared Hufflepuff/Slytherin charm's class, while confronting her for introducing muggle paper in Hogwarts.

Marry opened her mouth. A whisper traveled through the ranks. 'Harry Potter' 'Potter' 'Marry Potter'.

Marry felt a chill take up her spine. Oh, no. Her and her cutesy cover identity.

" **Ventus** " She heard someone (was that Theodore Nott?) whisper.

She raised her wand to cast **protegeo** , but it was too late, the spell had already reached her, in a strong gust of wind that glanced off her forehead, it blew most of her hair back, but not her bangs, which she charmed to stay plastered to her brow every morning.

In this case, it did her absolutely no good, her hair's stubborn refusal to move was as good as a confession. And the shield charm that belatedly shimmered around her, called silently by sheer habit of responding to a spell sent her way did nothing to help either.

'Evans' 'Lily Evans' the whisper ran on. 'But professor Evans...' 'adopted' 'Snape' 'Evans' 'didn't you notice' 'changed his name'

Each and every eye in the class was riveted on her. All around she heard her classmate mutter about Harry Potter and Girls.

Pansy was livid with outrage "You can't be!" She yelled. But at this point, it seemed like it as spurring the whispers on more than anything. "The Great Harry Potter! As a girl? In Hufflepuff? Ah!"

Marry took a step back, reinforcing her shield charm. This was going very badly. Around her, half the class was starting to pipe up about Hufflepuff being a good House too. The other half (the Slytherin one) seemed to mostly be quarreling about whether Marry could be Harry Potter despite being a girl and in Hufflepuff, and Severus Evans-Snape newly adopted niece.

Marry glanced at Professor Flitwick trying ineffectually to gain the student body's attention back to his class.

She bit her lip and glanced to Draco sitting at her side with his charm's textbook and notebook (the very same muggle notebook that sparked the altercation) open in front of him.

Draco winced back at her.

She got it. It was the turning point. The moment when she became famous again, even though she had enjoyed her year long respite from fame, this was when she had to start making her political stand and try her best to point her fame in a way that would help avoid the Wizarding Civil War.

They had spoken a bit about what she would need to do when she was discovered, but not to the point where she could consider her speech rehearsed. By the Magic how she was nervous. She could feel herself heating up from the attention, in a way she'd always done for public speaking, but not in fights to death.

With a sigh, she lifted she wand to point at her bangs. " **Finite Incantatem** "


	42. Famous

One would think, especially seeing her previous experiences with coming out, that declaring oneself to be a girl in a world with magic would go over fairly smoothly.

One might be right, but one does not take into account the sheer number of questions a whole school full of learning teenager could come up with. Most of those questions were also horribly intimate and specific.

Marry was glad she was not actually twelve, because she would have been scarred for life having so many older students finding it perfectly normal to just ask her about her genitals, generally somewhere in between questions about Voldemort and her dead parents.

"If you want to know so badly how to change sexes, go ask madam Pomfrey." Became something of a refrain.

Of course, none could outdo the oaf in chief, Gilderoy Lockhart, who not only rushed for the occasion to be the one outing Marry both as Harry Potter and as a trans witch to the whole Wizarding Britain by way of the Prophet, he also had the nerve to imply in his interview that Marry had her change of chosen gender because she had a crush on him and wanted to have a chance at catching his eye.

Gilderoy Lockhart, thankfully, didn't stay a teacher for very long afterward. Marry considered it a minor miracle that the stupid and vain professor actually managed to get Severus and Sirius to work together.

The charges of pedophilia would never stick, seeing the narrative that Lockhart had used in his interview deliberately went toward gently rebuffing a kid. The charges for obliviating heroes and stealing their accomplishments, on the other hand, handily did their job at dragging Lockhart's reputation backwards through the mud, and of draining all of his money.

Both Severus and Sirius looked very happy with themselves when the trial set the fine. Though they looked like they would be happier to see the man remanded to Azkaban. Even the best of bribes wouldn't hold against the sheer charisma and acting prowess of the master swindler.

Marry was mostly happy about the verdict.

She was less happy about being ambushed at every corner of the castle by seemingly every single student.

She ended up angry enough to climb on the Hufflepuff Table at breakfast, and shout.

"Yes, I was born Harry Potter. Yes, I have secretly been 'Harry Potter' all along. Yes, Voldemort tried to kill me and killed my parents rendering me orphan. Yes, I have a lightning scar, and no, I won't show it to you. I did burn Voldemort with my hands last year. I did grow up with muggles, and I decided that I'm a girl now when I discovered that magic could help me change. The modifications I may or may not have made to my body is none of your business, if you're curious for a good reason, go ask Madam Pomfrey, or research in the damned library. Stop asking me stupid questions. Also Hufflepuff is too a good enough House for me."

There was a great hush, then The whole of Hufflepuff table went in an uproar of cheering for her.

The next few weeks were made much more livable by the presence of her dedicated squadron of Hufflepuff defenders, who liked to put themselves between her and curious askers. Though her new escort was also wearying, and she tried her best to escape all attention for at least a few minutes each day.

When being alone wasn't a reasonable option, she opted for hiding out in her or Draco's room, where they also discussed Occlumency, philosophy, the nature of magic, or how to kill a great big pit viper, among other subjects.

She truly loathed being famous.

But she would do with it.


	43. Life Goes On

Her abrupt reacquaintance with Sirius went very well when everyone around Marry had the goal of making Lockhart pay for being an ass, but Marry felt the strain seeping in almost as soon as they got out of the Wizengamot trial.

 

It wasn't like she expected Sirius and Severus to like each-other on sight, but she still was a little disappointed that it took them less than a day to start a pissing contest about who should have Marry's guard over the summer. Which she had to break up by bringing up the blood protection and Dumbledore's stubbornness about trusting the blood wards over anything else. That made for a trying conversation. Especially since Severus decided to be unbearably smug about the whole adoption business.

She decided to let them argue to their hearts' content and to ditch the both of them and get back to her dorm. She simply hopped they were adult enough not to murder each-other. Or that they feared Dumbledore enough to not try to kill each-other inside of Hogwarts (Dumbledore had let Sirius stay over for the length of the trial due to the 'exacting circumstances'. Marry also hopped that Dumbledore would be pragmatic enough not to give Sirius the DADA teaching position right away, as he was not yet mentally stable enough to be teaching children.)

She tried not to bitch about the situation to Draco too much that evening, it wouldn't be fair to him since his own familial life was likely worse than hers.

The new Defence teacher was introduced the morning after Marry had climbed on the table to shut the content questions up.

It was Mad-Eye Moody.

Great.

So instead of maybe still mad Sirius, Dumbledore had chosen definitely mad Moody.

She took a deep breath, then checked on the Marrauder's map to be sure it was the true Moody.

It was.

She was only partially reassured.

She really hoped he was not mad enough to do the Unforgivable demonstration to the second year.

 

On another subject, Marry unthinkingly brought Ron, Draco and Hermione to the Kitchens to ask the elves for a snack to bring out and eat on the ground. Which was a mistake she really should have been able to foresee. But Hermione had met Dobby, who blubbered about Marry and Draco freeing him.

Hermione almost went on a hunger strike about House-Elves rights. She really was the same Hermione Marry had known as Harry deep down.


End file.
